Abstract
Capacity limitations of attentional resources allow only a fraction of sensory inputs to enter our awareness. Most prominently, in the attentional blink the observer often fails to detect the second of two rapidly successive targets that are presented in a sequence of distractor items. To investigate how auditory inputs enable a visual target to escape the attentional blink, this study presented the visual letter targets T1 and T2 together with phonologically congruent or incongruent spoken letter names. First, a congruent relative to an incongruent sound at T2 rendered visual T2 more visible. Second, this T2 congruency effect was amplified when the sound was congruent at T1 as indicated by a T1 congruency × T2 congruency interaction. Critically, these effects were observed both when the sounds were presented in synchrony with and prior to the visual target letters suggesting that the sounds may increase visual target identification via multiple mechanisms such as audiovisual priming or decisional interactions. Our results demonstrate that a sound around the time of T2 increases subjects' awareness of the visual target as a function of T1 and T2 congruency. Consistent with Bayesian causal inference, the brain may thus combine (1) prior congruency expectations based on T1 congruency and (2) phonological congruency cues provided by the audiovisual inputs at T2 to infer whether auditory and visual signals emanate from a common source and should hence be integrated for perceptual decisions.
Highlights
In our natural multisensory environment, our sensory systems are exposed to a constant inflow of sensory signals
GENERAL DISCUSSION In our natural environment our senses are constantly bombarded by many different signals with only a small fraction of them entering our awareness (Raymond et al, 1992; Simons and Chabris, 1999; Sergent et al, 2005; Pourtois et al, 2006)
This study investigated how the brain selects visual signals for conscious perception
Summary
In our natural multisensory environment, our sensory systems are exposed to a constant inflow of sensory signals. The attentional blink paradigm (Broadbent and Broadbent, 1987; Raymond et al, 1992) is a prime example illustrating limitations in attentional capacity for two rapidly successive stimuli (Chun and Potter, 1995; Marois et al, 2004; Shapiro et al, 2006; Adam et al, 2014). In an attentional blink paradigm, participants are impaired when reporting the second (T2) of two targets (T1 and T2) that are presented within a 500 ms interval amongst a rapid visual sequence of distractor items (Shapiro et al, 1997b; Dux and Marois, 2009 see Olson et al, 2001 for phonological material)
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