Ventriloquism aftereffect in a virtual audio-visual environment

The ventriloquism effect is a case of cross-modal integration, when a visual stimulus affects the spatial localization of a simultaneously presented auditory stimulus. One way to investigate the effect is by studying its post-exposure influence on the localization of unimodal auditory information. In the present study we investigated the ventriloquism aftereffect in a virtual audio-visual environment in order to study the robustness of the aftereffect. Results showed that the location of the visual objects shifted the apparent location of auditory stimuli in the direction of the object. This effect was largest when the sound source was on the same side as the visual object, but when it was on the opposite side, the localization was shifted in the wrong direction. Overall the results demonstrate very similar effects in the virtual environment as in the real world.