Visual-Spatial Attention: Can Sounds Affect Perception of Visual Objects?

Abstract

It is currently understood that it is possible for attention to be drawn by a stimulus to an area in space without the conscious decision to do so and that this can be achieved across modalities; for example, a vibration of a mobile phone or a ringtone can draw eyes to the phone’s location (Hairston et al., 2003). Whether a combination of audio and visual information can affect perception of visual objects enough to demonstrate inhibition of return (IOR) is unknown. In a classic Posner task (1980), participants fixate on the centre of a display screen and have their attention drawn to surrounding areas. When a flash is cued at a surrounding location, target detection is facilitated comparative to anywhere. In a stream/bounce paradigm (Sanabria et al., 2004), motion and sound is added to a similar kind of display to that of Posner’s (but without cueing), to investigate the perceptual effects of combined visual and auditory information on attention. It was discovered that the addition of a sound could influence how the display was perceived. With a combination of the Posner (1980) display and stream bounce paradigm, it is possible to test whether the perceptual influences of sound can change the dynamics of how attention is known to work. In this experiment, object-based IOR was not found when just visual stimuli were presented, but was evident when visual and auditory information were combined. The results demonstrate that there is promise for further research into the influence of sound on visual perception, but that stimulus driven spatial attention can be sensitive to methodological issues arising from the specifics of the task. Consequently, spatial interference and eye movements are discussed.