An audio and video synchronizing perceptual model is described that is based on how a person perceives audio and/or video (e.g., how the brain processes sound and/or visual content). The relative emotional impact associated with different audio portions may be employed to determine transition points to facilitate automatic synchronization of audio data to video data to create a production that achieves a particular overall emotional effect on the listener/viewer. Various processing techniques of the perceptual model may utilize perceptual characteristics within the audio portions to determine a transition point for automatic synchronization with video data.