Full text: Unavailable
When visual and auditory stimuli are displayed with a spatial offset, the sound is heard at or near the visual stimulus (ventriloquist effect). After an adaptation period of repeated exposure to spatially offset audio–visual stimuli, sounds presented alone are perceived spatially displaced, in the direction of the adapting offset (ventriloquist aftereffect: Recanzione, 1998), pointing to recalibration of audio–visual alignment. Here we show that the recalibration is spatially selective. Adapting, one visual hemifield to (say) a leftward offset, and the other to a rightward (or zero) offset produces two separate spatially localized aftereffects, in opposite directions. If a large (30°) eye-movement is interposed between adaptation and test, the spatial specificity remains in head-centered coordinates. The results provide further evidence for the existence of spatiotopic (or at least craniotopic) spatial maps, which are subject to continual recalibration.