Abstract
Do vision and audition have a similar manner in the perceptual organization? Previous research demonstrated that a brief sound changes the perceptual organization in auditory stream/bounce phenomenon as well as in vision (Yasuhara, Hongoh, Kita, 2010). In order to investigate another similarity between vision and audition, we here examined whether a flash event alters the perceptual organization in audition. In the present study, we used mixture of two glide tones ascending and descending in frequency that could be perceived as either streaming or bouncing. The experimental condition employed a flash event when the ascending and descending tones crossed, whereas the control condition did not present flash. As a result, a flash event did not increase rates of bouncing perception, of which the direction of pitch change switched in the mid-course but slightly decreased rates of streaming perception, of which the direction of pitch change stayed constantly. These results suggest that a flash event has a subtler effect on the change of the perceptual organization in audition than the auditory event.