The effect of visual stimuli on auditory detection in a auditory attention task

Abstract

Converging evidence indicates that spatial information of stimuli plays an important role in multisensory interaction. The spatial characteristics of auditory stimuli tended to be biased toward the spatial characteristics of visual stimuli. Many studies have shown that spatial consistency of audiovisual stimuli can influence the interaction between visual and auditory stimulus, however, the multisensory mechanisms were not well understood. Here, we investigated the effect of visual spatial information on auditory detection in a auditory attention task. The auditory stimuli were presented through two speakers that was placed on the left and right of the display. The visual stimuli were presented on the left (−8°), right (+8°) or central (0°) locations. Visual stimuli and auditory stimuli were presented in a consistent or inconsistent position. From the results, the responses to consistent audiovisual stimuli were faster and more accurate than inconsistent stimuli. The effect of the left and right stimuli were greater in the central visual flash. This study provided evidence that auditory detection can be affected by the visual stimuli come from different spatial locations even if the visual stimuli were not attended. We expect that these results could helpful to process the audiovisual information of artificial intelligence.