Auditory Dominance Research Articles

Top-down attention modulates the direction and magnitude of sensory dominance.

Bottom-up inputs from multiple sensory modalities compete to reach perceptual consciousness. The sensory dominance effect refers to the phenomenon that stimuli from one sensory modality are preferentially selected over the other modalities. Top-down attention helps us to select task-relevant information while filtering out task-irrelevant distracting information. To investigate how top-down attention towards one specific modality modulates the sensory dominance effect, we incorporated the endogenous cue-target paradigm and an adapted version of the Colavita paradigm in the present study. The visual responses could either precede or fall behind the auditory responses, i.e., the visual vs. auditory precedence trials. The direction of the sensory dominance was defined as the proportion of the visual vs. auditory precedence bimodal trials, and the magnitude of the sensory dominance was calculated as the difference in reaction times between the first and the second responses in the bimodal trials. Results from the present three experiments consistently showed that when attention was voluntarily directed to the visual modality, the visual dominance occurred more frequently than the auditory dominance, and the magnitude of the visual dominance was significantly larger than the auditory dominance. This pattern of results was independent of the delivery modality of the cue. The present results thus provide direct empirical evidence showing that endogenous attention towards one specific sensory modality modulates both the direction and the size of sensory dominance.

Spatial Cues Influence Time Estimations in Deaf Individuals.

SummaryRecent studies have reported a strong interaction between spatial and temporal representation when visual experience is missing: blind people use temporal representation of events to represent spatial metrics. Given the superiority of audition on time perception, we hypothesized that when audition is not available complex temporal representations could be impaired, and spatial representation of events could be used to build temporal metrics. To test this hypothesis, deaf and hearing subjects were tested with a visual temporal task where conflicting and not conflicting spatiotemporal information was delivered. As predicted, we observed a strong deficit of deaf participants when only temporal cues were useful and space was uninformative with respect to time. However, the deficit disappeared when coherent spatiotemporal cues were presented and increased for conflicting spatiotemporal stimuli. These results highlight that spatial cues influence time estimations in deaf participants, suggesting that deaf individuals use spatial information to infer temporal environmental coordinates.

Hemispheric Dominance and Laterality in Mobile Phone Use in Adults: An Observational Study

Aims: Mobile/cell phone use has become an important socio-medical means of communication. The reason people use a particular ear to answer phone calls more frequently may be associated with hemispheric dominance/ handedness. We aim to determine association between hemispheric and or auditory dominance in laterality in mobile phone use. 
 Study Design: This was a three month prospective cross-sectional study involving all consenting medical and paramedical respondents.
 Place and Duration of Study: Hospital community in the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), Benin City , between 15th March to 15th June 2018.
 Method: A modification of the Edinburgh handedness inventory (EHI) was the survey tool. Information retrieved included social demographics, hand most commonly used for activities like writing and picking of phone calls and ear used for phone conversation and the reasons. Data was analyzed using SPSS 19.0
 Results: Of the 300 questionnaires distributed, 234 (78%) were completed by the respondents. There were 120(51.3%) males and114 (48.7%) females. Age ranged from 18 - 80years. A total of 201(85.9%) were right handed, 16(6.8%) left handed and 14(6.0%) ambidextrous. One hundred and fifty four (66%) routinely use their right hand to pick phone calls, 50(21.4%) left and 27 (11.5%) use both hands.
 A total of 141(60%) receive calls with the right ear, 60 (25.6%) with left, and 31(13.2%) had no preference. Reasons advanced for the use of any particular ear included convenience 173 (73.9%), and better acuity 35(15%). Forty two (17.9%) agreed that the use of cell phone made them aware of their poor hearing in a particular ear. Using Pearson’s two tailed test of significance the probability of a right hander using the right hand to pick a phone call and placing it on the right ear is 0.99 or 99%, Vis a Vis left hander.
 Conclusion: There appears to be an association between hemispheric dominance and laterality when using the mobile phone.

Bimodal Presentation Speeds up Auditory Processing and Slows Down Visual Processing.

Many situations require the simultaneous processing of auditory and visual information, however, stimuli presented to one sensory modality can sometimes interfere with processing in a second sensory modality (i.e., modality dominance). The current study further investigated modality dominance by examining how task demands and bimodal presentation affect speeded auditory and visual discriminations. Participants in the current study had to quickly determine if two words, two pictures, or two word-picture pairings were the same or different, and we manipulated task demands across three different conditions. In an immediate recognition task, there was only one second between the two stimuli/stimulus pairs and auditory dominance was found. Compared to the respective unimodal baselines, pairing pictures and words together slowed down visual responses and sped up auditory responses. Increasing the interstimulus interval to four seconds and blocking verbal rehearsal weakened auditory dominance effects, however, conflicting and redundant visual cues sped up auditory discriminations. Thus, simultaneously presenting pictures and words had different effects on auditory and visual processing, with bimodal presentation slowing down visual processing and speeding up auditory processing. These findings are consistent with a proposed mechanism underlying auditory dominance, which posits that auditory stimuli automatically grab attention and attenuate/delay visual processing.

What you see depends on what you hear: Temporal averaging and crossmodal integration.

In our multisensory world, we often rely more on auditory information than on visual input for temporal processing. One typical demonstration of this is that the rate of auditory flutter assimilates the rate of concurrent visual flicker. To date, however, this auditory dominance effect has largely been studied using regular auditory rhythms. It thus remains unclear whether irregular rhythms would have a similar impact on visual temporal processing, what information is extracted from the auditory sequence that comes to influence visual timing, and how the auditory and visual temporal rates are integrated together in quantitative terms. We investigated these questions by assessing, and modeling, the influence of a task-irrelevant auditory sequence on the type of "Ternus apparent motion": group motion versus element motion. The type of motion seen critically depends on the time interval between the two Ternus display frames. We found that an irrelevant auditory sequence preceding the Ternus display modulates the visual interval, making observers perceive either more group motion or more element motion. This biasing effect manifests whether the auditory sequence is regular or irregular, and it is based on a summary statistic extracted from the sequential intervals: their geometric mean. However, the audiovisual interaction depends on the discrepancy between the mean auditory and visual intervals: if it becomes too large, no interaction occurs-which can be quantitatively described by a partial Bayesian integration model. Overall, our findings reveal a cross-modal perceptual averaging principle that may underlie complex audiovisual interactions in many everyday dynamic situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

The Effects of modal-based endogenous attention on sound-induced flash illusion

<p id="C2">The sound-induced flash illusion (SIFI) is an auditory-dominant phenomenon in multisensory integration in which the perception of brief visual flashes may be qualitatively altered by concurrent brief sounds. It has been well documented how attention modulates this illusion. It remains unknown, however, how modal-based endogenous attention interferes with the SIFI. In the present study, we adopted the classical paradigm of the SIFI and directed the endogenous attention to the visual modal or the auditory modal to investigate the effect of modal-based endogenous attention on SIFI. <p id="C50">Experiment 1 asked the participants to conduct the classical task of the SIFI as the baseline. In experiment 2, the ratio of the visual modal, the auditory modal, and the audio-visual modal was 3:1:1; that is, the endogenous attention was directed to the visual modal. In experiment 3, the ratio of the visual modal, auditory modal and audio-visual modal was 1:3:1; that is, the endogenous attention was directed to the auditory modal. In the present study, we asked the participants to judge the number of flashes, and we focused mainly on the occurrence of fission illusions (when a single visual flash is accompanied by two auditory bleeps and is perceived incorrectly as two flashes) and fusion illusions (when two visual flashes are accompanied by a single bleep and are perceived incorrectly as a single flash). The hypothesis was that directing endogenous attention to the visual or auditory modal could affect the auditory dominance. <p id="C51">A repeated measures ANOVA was analyzed for fission and fusion illusions separately, and the results showed that there were significant differences among the three experiments, <italic>F</italic> (1, 2) = 5.11, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.01, η ²= 0.23. The occurrence of fission illusions was decreased when endogenous attention was directed to the visual modal (50%) and was increased when endogenous attention was directed to the auditory modal (71%). However, regardless of whether endogenous attention was directed to the auditory or visual modal, fusion illusion was not affected by attention (<italic>p</italic>s &gt; 0.05). In addition, we also pooled the response counts across all of the participants and for both fission and fusion stimuli. The results showed that the odds ratio for fission was greater than that for fusion, and there was a difference among the three experiments for fission (17.5 vs. 9 vs. 21.95), and no effect for fusion (4.95 vs. 3.15 vs. 4.13). <p id="C52">The results indicated that modal-based endogenous attention can affect the occurrence of fission illusions but does not affect the occurrence of fusion illusions. The present study provides insight into the top-down factors that can modulate sound-induced flash illusions.

Two mechanisms underlying auditory dominance: Overshadowing and response competition

There are occasions when infants and children have difficulty in processing arbitrary auditory–visual pairings, with auditory input sometimes attenuating visual processing (i.e., auditory dominance). The current research examined possible mechanisms underlying these auditory dominance effects in infants and 4-year-olds. Do auditory dominance effects stem from auditory input attenuating encoding of visual input, from the difficulty of inhibiting auditory-based responses, or from a combination of these factors? In five reported experiments, 4-year-olds (Experiments 1A, 1B, 2A, and 2B) and 14- and 22-month-olds (Experiment 3) were presented with a variety of tasks that required simultaneous processing of auditory and visual input, and then we assessed memory for the visual items at test. Auditory dominance in young children resulted from response competition that children could not resolve. Infants’ results were not as robust, but they provided some evidence that nonlinguistic sounds and possibly spoken words may attenuate encoding of visual input. The current findings shed light on mechanisms underlying cross-modal processing and auditory dominance and have implications for many tasks that hinge on the processing of arbitrary auditory–visual pairings.

Changes in multisensory integration across the life span.

The study examined individual contributions of visual and auditory information on multisensory integration across the life span. In the experiment, children, young adults, and older adults participated in a variant of the Sound-Induced Flash Illusion where participants had to either ignore beeps and report how many flashes they saw or ignore flashes and report how many beeps they heard. Collapsed across age, auditory input had a stronger effect on visual processing than vice versa. However, relative contributions of auditory and visual information interacted with age, with young adults showing evidence of auditory dominance (only auditory input affected visual processing), whereas, multisensory integration effects were more symmetrical in children and older adults. The findings have implications for many tasks that require the processing of multisensory information. (PsycINFO Database Record

Different patterns of modality dominance across development

The present study sought to better understand how children, young adults, and older adults attend and respond to multisensory information. In Experiment 1, young adults were presented with two spoken words, two pictures, or two word-picture pairings and they had to determine if the two stimuli/pairings were exactly the same or different. Pairing the words and pictures together slowed down visual but not auditory response times and delayed the latency of first fixations, both of which are consistent with a proposed mechanism underlying auditory dominance. Experiment 2 examined the development of modality dominance in children, young adults, and older adults. Cross-modal presentation attenuated visual accuracy and slowed down visual response times in children, whereas older adults showed the opposite pattern, with cross-modal presentation attenuating auditory accuracy and slowing down auditory response times. Cross-modal presentation also delayed first fixations in children and young adults. Mechanisms underlying modality dominance and multisensory processing are discussed.

Audiovisual integration increases the intentional step synchronization of side-by-side walkers

When people walk side-by-side, they often synchronize their steps. To achieve this, individuals might cross-modally match audiovisual signals from the movements of the partner and kinesthetic, cutaneous, visual and auditory signals from their own movements. Because signals from different sensory systems are processed with noise and asynchronously, the challenge of the CNS is to derive the best estimate based on this conflicting information. This is currently thought to be done by a mechanism operating as a Maximum Likelihood Estimator (MLE). The present work investigated whether audiovisual signals from the partner are integrated according to MLE in order to synchronize steps during walking. Three experiments were conducted in which the sensory cues from a walking partner were virtually simulated. In Experiment 1 seven participants were instructed to synchronize with human-sized Point Light Walkers and/or footstep sounds. Results revealed highest synchronization performance with auditory and audiovisual cues. This was quantified by the time to achieve synchronization and by synchronization variability. However, this auditory dominance effect might have been due to artifacts of the setup. Therefore, in Experiment 2 human-sized virtual mannequins were implemented. Also, audiovisual stimuli were rendered in real-time and thus were synchronous and co-localized. All four participants synchronized best with audiovisual cues. For three of the four participants results point toward their optimal integration consistent with the MLE model. Experiment 3 yielded performance decrements for all three participants when the cues were incongruent. Overall, these findings suggest that individuals might optimally integrate audiovisual cues to synchronize steps during side-by-side walking.

Audio-visual perception of mandarin tone in clear speech

Clearly enunciated speech (relative to conversational, plain speech) involves articulatory and acoustic modifications that have been shown to enhance segmental intelligibility. However, little research has explored clear-speech effects on the perception of suprasegmental properties such as lexical tone, particularly involving visual (facial) perception. Moreover, research has not determined if visual tonal cues are linguistically significant, presumably because tone production does not rely on vocal tract configurations. Investigating clear-speech effects may help validate the contribution of visual information, since improved visual tone intelligibility in clear speech would indicate the linguistic relevance of visual cues. The present study tested this hypothesis by examining the intelligibility of clear and plain Mandarin tones by native (Mandarin) and non-native (English) perceivers with auditory/visual input modalities (AO: audio-only; VO: visual-only; and AV: audio-visual). Results showed small but significant clear-speech benefits in each modality for both natives and non-natives. However, while the natives revealed an overall visual gain and auditory dominance (AV>AO>VO), visual gain appeared to be less prominent in non-native perception (AV VO in plain, AV = AO>VO in clear). These results demonstrate clear-speech facilitation in visual as well as auditory perception, particularly with native perceivers, suggesting the existence of linguistically relevant visual tonal cues.

Effects of clear speech and language background on multimodal perception of English fricatives

Research shows that acoustic modifications in clearly enunciated fricative consonants (relative to the plain, conversational productions) facilitate auditory fricative perception. However, clear-speech effects on visual fricative perception have received less attention. A comparison of auditory and visual (facial) clear-fricative perception is particularly interesting since sibilant fricatives in English are more auditorily salient while non-sibilants are more visually salient. This study thus examines clear-speech effects on audio-visual perception of English sibilant and non-sibilant fricatives. Native English perceivers and non-native perceivers with different L1 fricative inventories (Mandarin, Korean) identified clear and plain fricative-vowel syllables in audio-only (AO), visual-only (VO), and audio-visual (AV) modes. The results across perceiver groups and speech styles showed an overall visual benefit and auditory dominance (AV>AO>VO). Comparisons of styles revealed clear-speech benefits in AO across fricatives and groups, but different patterns were noted in the visual conditions. In VO and AV, clear speech helped the more visually salient non-sibilant identification for native perceivers; however, clear-speech benefits were less prominent in non-natives’ perception of the non-sibilants, which are non-existent in their L1s. These findings are discussed in terms of the relative audio-visual weighting that benefits perception in clear speech as a function of input saliency and perceiver experience.

The involvement of centralized and distributed processes in sub-second time interval adaptation: an ERP investigation of apparent motion.

Accumulating evidence suggests that the timing of brief stationary sounds affects visual motion perception. Recent studies have shown that auditory time interval can alter apparent motion perception not only through concurrent stimulation but also through brief adaptation. The adaptation after-effects for auditory time intervals was found to be similar to those for visual time intervals, suggesting the involvement of a central timing mechanism. To understand the nature of cortical processes underlying such after-effects, we adapted observers to different time intervals using either brief sounds or visual flashes and examined the evoked activity to the subsequently presented visual apparent motion. Both auditory and visual time interval adaptation led to significant changes in the ERPs elicited by the apparent motion. However, the changes induced by each modality were in the opposite direction. Also, they mainly occurred in different time windows and clustered over distinct scalp sites. The effects of auditory time interval adaptation were centred over parietal and parieto-central electrodes while the visual adaptation effects were mostly over occipital and parieto-occipital regions. Moreover, the changes were much more salient when sounds were used during the adaptation phase. Taken together, our findings within the context of visual motion point to auditory dominance in the temporal domain and highlight the distinct nature of the sensory processes involved in auditory and visual time interval adaptation.

Auditory Driving in Cinematic Art

Although the visual modality often dominates the auditory one, one exception occurs in the presence of tempo discrepancies between the two perceptual systems: variations in auditory rate typically have a greater influence on perceived visual rate than vice versa. This phenomenon, termed “auditory driving,” is investigated here through certain techniques used in cinematic art. Experiments 1 and 2 relied on montages (slideshows) of still photos accompanied by musical selections in which the perceived rate of one modality was assessed through a recognition task while the rate of the other modality was systematically varied. A similar methodological strategy was used in Experiments 3 and 4 in which film excerpts of various moving objects were accompanied by the sounds they typically produce. In both cases, auditory dominance was observed, which has implications at both a theoretical and applied level.

Comparison of the Saccules and Lagenae in six macrourid fishes from different deep-sea habitats

The structures of inner ears were compared between six species of Macrouridae (grenadiers and rattails) that live at different ocean depths ranging from 200 to 5000 meters. The goal of this comparison is to find out if there are structural differences in their inner ears related to the depth of habitat. The size of the saccular otolith relative to fish head length varies considerably among the six species; with the largest otolith found in Nezumia aequalis and the smallest in N. parini, a mesopelagic species. N. aequalis is a species with potential sound production and auditory dominance by its drumming muscle on the swim bladder. Its saccular sensory area is four times larger than those from the two species live in shallower depths and have vision as their dominant sense (N. parini and Coryphaenoides rupestris). The differences found in the saccule and lagena of these species reflect the sensory advantages of habitats that are related to the benefits and constraints at different depths. It also reflects the fish’s particular life style and the trade-off among different sensory systems. The most obvious trade-off among sensory systems is found between vision and hearing.

A Neural Circuit for Auditory Dominance over Visual Perception

When conflicts occur during integration of visual and auditory information, one modality often dominates the other, but the underlying neural circuit mechanism remains unclear. Using auditory-visual discrimination tasks for head-fixed mice, we found that audition dominates vision in a process mediated by interaction between inputs from the primary visual (VC) and auditory (AC) cortices in the posterior parietal cortex (PTLp). Co-activation of the VC and AC suppresses VC-induced PTLp responses, leaving AC-induced responses. Furthermore, parvalbumin-positive (PV+) interneurons in the PTLp mainly receive AC inputs, and muscimol inactivation of the PTLp or optogenetic inhibition of its PV+ neurons abolishes auditory dominance in the resolution of cross-modal sensory conflicts without affecting either sensory perception. Conversely, optogenetic activation of PV+ neurons in the PTLp enhances the auditory dominance. Thus, our results demonstrate that AC input-specific feedforward inhibition of VC inputs in the PTLp is responsible for the auditory dominance during cross-modal integration.

Effect of selective and divided attentions on auditory dominance in multisensory integration

Effect of selective and divided attentions on auditory dominance in multisensory integration

To bridge or not to bridge the multisensory time gap: bimanual coordination to sound and touch with temporal lags.

Living in a complex and multisensory environment involves constant interaction between perception and action. There is evidence that multisensory integration is governed by temporal factors, such as physiological synchrony between cross-modal stimuli favouring multisensory benefit, and the existence of a range of asynchrony between the stimuli which affords their binding (the temporal window of integration). These factors were examined in this study in a bimanual sensorimotor synchronization task with cross-modal stimuli. Participants synchronized each hand to a pair of audio-tactile stimuli, in which the asynchrony between onsets of auditory and tactile stimuli was systematically manipulated. In cross-modal conditions, they were instructed to tap either to the auditory stimuli or to tactile stimuli. The results reported a temporal window of integration of 160ms centred around 40 and 80ms (tactile first). Moreover, the temporal interval between the auditory and tactile stimuli affected the stability of bimanual coordination and of synchronization exclusively when participants were instructed to synchronize with tactile stimuli. Overall, the results indicate that both physiological asynchrony and temporal window of integration apply to cross-modal integration in a bimanual synchronization task. In addition, it shows the effect of auditory dominance onto multisensory temporal processes. This study sheds light on the role of temporal factors in multisensory processes when perception and actions are rhythmic and coupled.

Existence of competing modality dominances.

Approximately 40years of research on modality dominance has shown that humans are inclined to focus on visual information when presented with compounded visual and auditory stimuli. The current paper reports a series of experiments showing evidence of both auditory and visual dominance effects. Using a behavioral oddball task, we found auditory dominance when examining response times to auditory and visual oddballs-simultaneously presenting pictures and sounds slowed down responses to visual but not auditory oddballs. However, when requiring participants to make separate responses for auditory, visual, and bimodal oddballs, auditory dominance was eliminated with a reversal to visual dominance (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 replicated auditory dominance and showed that increased task demands and asking participants to analyze cross-modal stimuli conjunctively (as opposed to disjunctively) cannot account for the reversal to visual dominance. Mechanisms underlying sensory dominance and factors that may modulate sensory dominance are discussed.

Auditory stimuli automatically grab attention: Evidence from eye tracking and attentional manipulations.

Simultaneously presenting auditory and visual stimuli can hinder performance for one modality while the other dominates. For approximately 40 years, research with adults has primarily indicated visual dominance, while recent research with infants and young children has revealed auditory dominance. The current study further investigates modality dominance with adults, finding evidence for both auditory and visual dominance across 3 experiments. Using a simple discrimination task, Experiment 1 revealed that cross-modal presentation attenuated discrimination of auditory input, while at the same time, also slowed down visual processing. Even when participants were instructed to only pay attention to the visual stimuli, both spoken nonsense words and nonlinguistic sounds slowed down visual processing (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 used a similar discrimination task while utilizing an eye tracker to examine how auditory input affects visual fixations. Cross-modal presentation attenuated auditory discrimination; however, it also slowed down visual response times. In addition, adults also made longer fixations and were slower to make their first fixation when images were paired with sounds. The latter finding is novel and consistent with a proposed mechanism of auditory dominance: auditory stimuli automatically engage attention and attenuate or delay visual processing. (PsycINFO Database Record