Abstract
The visual processing capacity of tinnitus patients is worse than normal controls, indicating cross-modal interference. However, the mechanism underlying the tinnitus-modulated visual processing is largely unclear. In order to explore the influence of tinnitus on visual processing, this study used a signal recognition paradigm to observe whether the tinnitus group would display a significantly longer reaction time in processing the letter symbols (Experiment 1) and emotional faces (Experiment 2) than the control group. Signal detection and signal recognition, which reflect the perceptual and conceptual aspects of visual processing respectively, were manipulated individually in different conditions to identify the pattern of the cross-modal interference of tinnitus. The results showed that the tinnitus group required a significantly prolonged reaction time in detecting and recognizing the letter symbols and emotional faces than the control group; meanwhile, no between-group difference was detected in signal encoding. In addition, any gender- and distress-modulated effects of processing were not found, suggesting the universality of the present findings. Finally, follow-up studies would be needed to explore the neural mechanism behind the decline in speed of visual processing. The positive emotional bias in tinnitus patients also needs to be further verified and discussed.Highlights:- The bottom-up visual processing speed is decreased in tinnitus patients.- Tinnitus primarily interferes with the detection of the visual signals in individuals.
Highlights
In daily life, the human brain often deals with information from different sensory channels
The current study provided a preliminary behavioral evidence for the cross-modal interference of tinnitus to visual processing and suggested that the interference exists in early visual processing
MQ, JC, SZ, and JG in charge of preliminary screening and contacted with subject
Summary
The human brain often deals with information from different sensory channels. When the brain is unable to effectively process all the information due to the limitation of cognitive resources, different sensory channels would compete with each other to fulfill the needs of information processing; this phenomenon is termed cross-modal interference (Mazza et al, 2007; Koelewijn et al, 2010). Cross-Modal Interference of Tinnitus on Visual Processing. Studies have showed cross-modal interference in individuals with tinnitus, that is, visual processing in tinnitus patients is impaired compared to normal controls. Araneda et al (2015) observed similar findings in a visual-spatial Stroop task, and found out a longer reaction time (RT) and a higher error rate in the tinnitus group compared to the control group Stevens et al (2007) found that the severe tinnitus group showed a significantly worse efficiency than the controls in the Stroop task, and the between-group differences increased as a function of the difficulty of the task. Araneda et al (2015) observed similar findings in a visual-spatial Stroop task, and found out a longer reaction time (RT) and a higher error rate in the tinnitus group compared to the control group
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