Single trial prestimulus oscillations predict perception of the sound-induced flash illusion.

In the sound-induced flash illusion, auditory input affects the perception of visual stimuli with a large inter- and intraindividual variability. Crossmodal influence in this illusion has been shown to be associated with activity in visual and temporal areas. In this electroencephalography study, we investigated the relationship between oscillatory brain activity prior to stimulus presentation and subsequent perception of the illusion on the level of single trials. Using logistic regression, we modeled the perceptual outcome dependent on oscillatory power. We found that 25 Hz to 41 Hz activity over occipital electrodes from 0.17 s to 0.05 s prior to stimulus onset predicted the perception of the illusion. A t-test of power values, averaged over the significant cluster, between illusion and no-illusion trials showed higher power in illusion trials, corroborating the modeling result. We conclude that the observed power modulation predisposes the integration of audiovisual signals, providing further evidence for the governing role of prestimulus brain oscillations in multisensory perception.