Dynamic audio-visual correspondence in musicians and non-musicians

Abstract

Most previous audio-visual crossmodal correspondence studies focused on static visual or auditory stimuli. Moreover, some researchers have found that music training can effectively improve the interaction between auditory and visual channels by enhancing neural plasticity. This study focused on whether crossmodal correspondence occurs when people face dynamic visual and auditory stimuli, and whether it is affected by musical training. Participants were asked to judge different changes in pitch (rise and drop) by showing them different patterns of visual circle motion (enlarged, reduced, and unchanged). The results revealed that the audio-visual congruent combinations (the pitch rise when the circle was enlarged and the pitch drop when the circle was reduced) significantly shortened participants’ response times, whereas the audio-visual neutral combinations (the unchanged shape) had the highest accuracy. Participants with musical training were faster than participants without musical training to judge pitch changes in conditions where the association between pitch and shape size was incongruent. These findings provide empirical evidence for dynamic audio-visual crossmodal correspondence and shed light on the bright prospect of using congruent audio-visual stimuli in animation.