Sensory Dominance Depends on Locus of Attentional Selection: Cross-modal Distraction at Different Levels of Information Processing
Last modified: 2011-09-02
Abstract
Which one, ‘looking without seeing’ or ‘listening without hearing’, is more effective? There have been ongoing debates on the direction of sensory dominance in case of cross-modal distraction. In the present study, we assumed that the specific direction of sensory dominance depends on the locus of attentional selection. Visual dominance may occur at the earlier stages while auditory dominance may occur at the later stages of cognitive processing. In order to test this hypothesis, we designed the present two (modality attended) by three (cross-modal congruency) experiment. Participants were asked to attend to either visual or auditory modality while ignore stimuli from the other modality during bimodal (visual and auditory) stimulation. More importantly, we explicitly differentiated the cross-modal distraction into the pre-response and the response level by manipulating three levels of cross-modal congruency: congruent, incongruent response-ineligible (II), and incongruent response-eligible (IE). Our behavioural data suggested that visual distractors caused more interferences to auditory processing than vice versa at the pre-response level while auditory distractors caused more interferences to visual processing than vice versa at the response level, indicating visual dominance at the pre-response level while auditory dominance at the response level. At the neural level, dissociable neural networks were also revealed. The default mode network of the human brain underlies visual dominance at the pre-response level, while the prefrontal executive regions, left posterior superior temporal sulcus and left inferior occipital cortex underlie auditory dominance at the response level.
References
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Koppen, C., Levitan, C.A., and Spence, C. (2009). A signal detection study of the Colavita visual dominance effect. Exp Brain Res 196, 353-360.
Mayer, A.R., Franco, A.R., Canive, J., and Harrington, D.L. (2009). The effects of stimulus modality and frequency of stimulus presentation on cross-modal distraction. Cereb Cortex 19, 993-1007.
Weissman, D.H., Warner, L.M., and Woldorff, M.G. (2004). The neural mechanisms for minimizing cross-modal distraction. J Neurosci 24, 10941-10949.
Orr, J.M., and Weissman, D.H. (2009). Anterior cingulate cortex makes 2 contributions to minimizing distraction. Cereb Cortex 19, 703-711.
Welch, R.B., and Warren, D.H. (1980). Immediate perceptual response to intersensory discrepancy. Psychol Bull 88, 638-667.
Yuval-Greenberg, S., and Deouell, L.Y. (2007). What you see is not (always) what you hear: induced gamma band responses reflect cross-modal interactions in familiar object recognition. J Neurosci 27, 1090-1096.
Yuval-Greenberg, S., and Deouell, L.Y. (2009). The dog's meow: asymmetrical interaction in cross-modal object recognition. Exp Brain Res 193, 603-614.