Research on the interaction between the visual and auditory senses has been conducted from as early as the nineteenth century answering questions like: ‘How does what I see influence what I hear?’, ‘Which is processed faster by the brain: sounds to sights?’, and ‘Why do we see distant objects before we hear them?’. This summer, sponsored by the College of Optometrists, I investigated this perceptual idiosyncrasy using a series of presentations incorporating a 10ms Gaussian noise (click) at three different levels of loudness and a 13ms visual stimulus (flash) varying in contrast, spatial frequency, position, luminance polarity and stimulus order. By asking the observer to judge the relative timing of these sensory events (i.e. which came first?) the Point of Subjective Simultaneity (PSS) for each experiment can be used as a marker whereby significant changes in this value can give further insight into understanding the neurological multisensory percept of perceived time.
I especially enjoyed processing and analysing the results and learned how to illustrate the data in ways that emphasised any changes whether significant or not. Even though the actual collection of the data posed to be somewhat tedious this encouraged me to be patient, consistent and meticulous in my approach to it.
To be successful in research requires a creative, curious mind, an insatiable appetite to know why things are the way they are and a determined will to pursue the answer to its fulfilment. Through this research I’ve grown to appreciate that the results are only half the fun rather it is in the entire unfolding of the experiments that one discovers qualities within oneself that otherwise would have remained dormant.
Research by Kelly George
Supervised by Professor David Whitaker, Professor of Vision Science, Deptartment of Optometry, University of Bradford
Sponsored by: College of Optometrists