Certain Determinants of the “Ventriloquism Effect”

Visual stimuli associated with a sound source can affect its localization in space—the basis for the “Ventriloquism” effect. The present experiments show that it is possible to obtain such effects over a much wider angle in the vertical median plane than in the horizontal plane. Such “capture” effects are also shown to be larger, the more similar the visual stimuli are to visual stimuli originally associated with that sound source. Attentional variables appear to be critical.