Sex difference in facilitation effects of auditory motion stimuli on vection

Abstract

Vection is an illusion of self-motion perception induced by large-field visual motion stimuli. Previous studies have shown that auditory stimuli influence vection. The present study investigates how sex differences influence the effect of auditory stimuli on vection. While rightward/leftward linear vection was induced, the auditory motion stimuli in either consistent or inconsistent direction were presented. The results showed that auditory stimuli significantly prolonged vection duration only for females when the sound was loud (75 dB) as compared to 55 dB, regardless of the directional consistency between auditory and visual stimuli. These results suggest that there are some sex differences in how auditory information is integrated with information from other sensory modalities in self-motion perception.