Assessing the effects of audiovisual semantic congruency on the perception of a bistable figure

► We examine the effect of auditory semantic context on bistable figure perception. ► The semantic context of background soundtrack found to modulate perception. ► This crossmodal semantic effect additive with effect of changing fixation position. ► The crossmodal semantic effect interacted with selective attention. ► These results show that cossmodal semantic congruency constrains visual awareness.