Semantic audio-visual congruence modulates visual sensitivity to biological motion across awareness levels
PSPE
- Ioannucci, Stefano ORCID Visual and Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, Dept. of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
- Vetter, Petra ORCID Visual and Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, Dept. of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
- 2025
Published in:
- Cognition. - Elsevier BV. - 2025, vol. 262, p. 1-8
English
Whether cross-modal interaction requires conscious awareness of multisensory information or whether it can occur in the absence of awareness, is still an open question. Here, we investigated if sounds can enhance detection sensitivity of semantically matching visual stimuli at varying levels of visual awareness. We presented biological motion stimuli of human actions (walking, rowing, sawing) during dynamic continuous flash suppression (CFS) to 80 participants and measured the effect of co-occurring, semantically matching or non-matching action sounds on visual sensitivity (d′). By individually thresholding stimulus contrast, we distinguished participants who detected motion either above or at chance level.
Participants who reliably detected visual motion above chance showed higher sensitivity to upright versus inverted biological motion across all experimental conditions. In contrast, participants detecting visual motion at chance level, i.e. during successful suppression, demonstrated this upright advantage exclusively during trials with semantically congruent sounds. Across the whole sample, the impact of sounds on visual sensitivity increased as participants’ visual detection performance decreased, revealing a systematic trade-off between auditory and visual processing. Our findings suggest that semantic congruence between auditory and visual information can selectively modulate biological motion perception when visual awareness is minimal or absent, while more robust visual signals enable perception of biological motion independent of auditory input. Thus, semantically congruent sounds may impact visual representations as a function of the level of visual awareness.
Participants who reliably detected visual motion above chance showed higher sensitivity to upright versus inverted biological motion across all experimental conditions. In contrast, participants detecting visual motion at chance level, i.e. during successful suppression, demonstrated this upright advantage exclusively during trials with semantically congruent sounds. Across the whole sample, the impact of sounds on visual sensitivity increased as participants’ visual detection performance decreased, revealing a systematic trade-off between auditory and visual processing. Our findings suggest that semantic congruence between auditory and visual information can selectively modulate biological motion perception when visual awareness is minimal or absent, while more robust visual signals enable perception of biological motion independent of auditory input. Thus, semantically congruent sounds may impact visual representations as a function of the level of visual awareness.
- Faculty
- Faculté des lettres et des sciences humaines
- Department
- Département de Psychologie
- Language
-
- English
- Classification
- Psychology
- License
- CC BY
- Open access status
- hybrid
- Identifiers
-
- DOI 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106181
- ISSN 0010-0277
- Persistent URL
- https://folia.unifr.ch/unifr/documents/331816
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