The perception of a moving object can lead to the expectation of its sound, yet little is known about how visual expectations influence auditory processing. We examined how visual perception of an object moving continuously across the visual field influences early auditory processing of a sound that occurred congruently or incongruently with the object’s motion. In Experiment 1, EEG activity was recorded from adults who passively viewed a ball that appeared either on the left or right boundary of a display and continuously traversed along the horizontal midline to make contact and elicit a bounce sound off the opposite boundary. Our main analysis focused on the auditory-evoked event-related potential. For audio-visual (AV) trials, a sound accompanied the visual input when the ball contacted the opposite boundary (AV-synchronous), or the sound occurred before contact (AV-asynchronous). We also included audio-only and visual-only trials. AV-synchronous sounds elicited an earlier and attenuated auditory response relative to AV-asynchronous or audio-only events. In Experiment 2, we examined the roles of expectancy and multisensory integration in influencing this response. In addition to the audio-only, AV-synchronous, and AV-asynchronous conditions, participants were shown a ball that became occluded prior to reaching the boundary of the display, but elicited an expected sound at the point of occluded collision. The auditory response during the AV-occluded condition resembled that of the AV-synchronous condition, suggesting that expectations induced by a moving object can influence early auditory processing. Broadly, the results suggest that dynamic visual stimuli can help generate expectations about the timing of sounds, which then facilitates the processing of auditory information that matches these expectations.

对运动物体的感知可以导致对其声音的预期，但对于视觉预期如何影响听觉处理知之甚少。我们研究了物体在视野中​​连续移动的视觉感知如何影响与物体运动一致或不一致发生的声音的早期听觉处理。在实验 1 中，记录了成年人的脑电图活动，这些成年人被动地观看了一个出现在显示器左侧或右侧边界上的球，并沿着水平中线不断穿过以接触并从相反的边界引发反弹声。我们的主要分析集中在听觉诱发的事件相关电位。对于视听 (AV) 试验，当球接触相对边界（AV 同步）时，伴随视觉输入的声音，或声音发生在接触之前（AV-异步）。我们还包括纯音频和纯视觉试验。与 AV 异步或纯音频事件相比，AV 同步声音引发了较早且减弱的听觉响应。在实验 2 中，我们检查了期望和多感官整合在影响这种反应中的作用。除了纯音频、AV 同步和 AV 异步条件外，参与者还看到了一个球，该球在到达显示器边界之前被遮挡，但在遮挡碰撞点引发了预期的声音。AV 闭塞条件下的听觉反应类似于 AV 同步条件下的听觉反应，这表明移动物体引起的预期会影响早期的听觉处理。宽广地，