Simultaneity judgment using olfactory-visual, visual-gustatory, and olfactory-gustatory combinations

PLoS One. 2017 Apr 4;12(4):e0174958. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0174958. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Vision is a physical sense, whereas olfaction and gustation are chemical senses. Active sensing might function in vision, olfaction, and gustation, whereas passive sensing might function in vision and olfaction but not gustation. To investigate whether each sensory property affected synchrony perception, participants in this study performed simultaneity judgment (SJ) for three cross-modal combinations using visual (red LED light), olfactory (coumarin), and gustatory (NaCl solution) stimuli. We calculated the half-width at half-height (HWHH) and point of subjective simultaneity (PSS) on the basis of temporal distributions of simultaneous response rates in each combination. Although HWHH did not differ significantly among three cross-modal combinations, HWHH exhibited a higher value in cross-modal combinations involving one or two chemical stimuli than in combinations of two physical stimuli, reported in a previous study. The PSS of the olfactory-visual combination was approximately equal to the point of objective simultaneity (POS), whereas the PSS of visual-gustatory, and olfactory-gustatory combinations receded significantly from the POS. In order to generalize these results as specific to chemical senses in regard to synchrony perception, we need to determine whether the same phenomena will be reproduced when performing SJ for various cross-modal combinations using visual, olfactory, and gustatory stimuli other than red LED light, coumarin, and NaCl solution.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Cerebral Cortex / physiology
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Judgment / physiology
  • Olfactory Perception / physiology*
  • Photic Stimulation
  • Reaction Time / physiology
  • Taste Perception / physiology*
  • Time Perception / physiology
  • Visual Perception / physiology*
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

This work was funded by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research , Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Grant No. 26245073, https://www.jsps.go.jp/english/e-grants/. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.