Attention to sound improves auditory reliability in audio-tactile spatial optimal integration

By Tiziana Vercillo, Monica Gori. 2015

34 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The role of attention on multisensory processing is still poorly understood. In particular, it is unclear whether directing attention toward a sensory cue dynamically reweights cue reliability during integration of multiple sensory signals. In this study, we investigated the impact of attention in combining audio-tactile signals in an optimal fashion. We used the Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) model to predict audio-tactile spatial localization on the body surface. We developed a new audio-tactile device composed by several small units, each one consisting of a speaker and a tactile vibrator independently controllable by external software. We tested participants in an attentional and a non-attentional condition. In the attentional experiment, participants performed a dual task paradigm: they were required to evaluate the duration of a sound while performing an audio-tactile spatial task. Three unisensory or multisensory stimuli, conflictual or not conflictual sounds and vibrations arranged along the horizontal axis, were presented sequentially. In the primary task participants had to evaluate in a space bisection task the position of the second stimulus (the probe) with respect to the others (the standards). In the secondary task they had to report occasionally changes in duration of the second auditory stimulus. In the non-attentional task participants had only to perform the primary task (space bisection). Our results showed an enhanced auditory precision (and auditory weights) in the auditory attentional condition with respect to the control non-attentional condition. The results of this study support the idea that modality-specific attention modulates multisensory integration.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology

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Citations in the corpus

Assessing the Role of the ‘Unity Assumption’ on Multisensory Integration: A Review (2017, positive): “Other studies have manipulated the participants’ attentional resources using a single vs. dual tasking manipulation, and the results demonstrated the participants’ performance remained statistically optimal in both conditions (Helbig and Ernst, 2008; Vercillo and Gori, 2015; Wahn and König, 2016).”
The Curious Incident of Attention in Multisensory Integration: Bottom-up vs. Top-down (2016, unknown): “…modality (Busse et al., 2005; Molholm et al, 2007) and the attentional focus of subjects affects the unisensory weights and extent of integration with e.g. multimodal attention as opposed to attending to a single modality, facilitating integration (Oruc et al., 2008; Vercillo and Gori, 2015).”