Unconscious audio-visual integration: spatial perception

本研究旨在探讨空间知觉中视听信息在无意识水平上的整合。为此，我们首先建立了无意识呈现听觉刺激的经验程序。然后，我们研究了无意识的视觉刺激对随后的听觉判断的影响，反之亦然。结果表明，视觉刺激在二维定位中有显著的作用。这种效应在二维运动方向上不明显，在三维知觉中消失。听觉刺激的影响一般是微妙的。因此，这些表明无意识的相互作用，提示两个关键因素：（i）听觉和视觉信号的综合表征和（ii）视觉和听觉的空间分辨率。

This study purposed to demonstrate integration of audio-visual information at unconscious level in spatial perception. For this purpose, we established empirical procedures to present auditory stimulus unconsciously at first. Then we examined effects of unconscious visual stimuli on the subsequent auditory judgment, and vice versa. The result showed the significant effect of visual stimulus in two-dimensional localization. The effect was less obvious in two-dimensional motion direction, and disappeared in three-dimensional perception. Effect of auditory stimulus was generally subtle. So these indicating unconscious interaction, suggest two critical factors of (i) the integrated representation of audio and visual signals and (ii) the spatial resolution in vision and audition.