Visual field asymmetry in the facilitation effects of audio-visual integration on visual representation(Summary of Awarded Presentation at the 31st Annual Meeting)

(1)

The Japanese Psychonomic Society

NII-Electronic Library Service

The JapanesePsychonomic Society

ThelapaneseJournalofPsrchonemicScience

2013,

Vol,

32,

Ne,

1,

139-140

Summary

of

Awarded

Presentation

Visual

field

asymmetry

in

the

facilitation

effects

of

on

visual

representationi

Ylasuhiro

TAKEsHiMA*

and

Jiro

GyoBA

visual

integration

lbhoku

Uhiversity

Auditory

stirnuli often

improve

visual

detection

and

identification

_{perforrnance,}

altheugh

they

do

not

directly

convey

information

visual

stirnuli.

This

facilitation

effect

is

assumed

to

be

attentional mecha-nisms, which

have

hemispheric

asymmetry.

In

this

studM we examined

the

relationship

between

the

facilitation

ef-fect

of audio-visual

integratiom

and

hemispheric

asymmetry

in

attentional mechanisms using

a

dual-stream

RSVP

task.

Auditory

stimuli affected

the

left

hemisphere

when

two

targets

have

to

be

identified,

but

affected

the

right

hemisphere

when

two

targets

have

to

be

localized.

Because

the

auditory

facilitation

effect

corresponds

to

hemispher-ic

specialization

in

_perceptual

_processing,

we

_propose

that

salient stimulus-driven attention

has

_greater

effects on

the

dominant

hemisphere

to

_promote

stable and ecacient

_processing.

Key

words: audio-visual

integration,

yisual

field

asymmetry attentional

blink

Concurrent

auditery stimuli enhance visual object repre-sentation.

This

facilitation

effect ofaudio-visual

integration

is

assumed

to

be

attentional mechanisms

(Talsma,

Senkowski,

Soto-Faraco,

&

WOIdorfL

2010,

for

areview),

Ad-ditionalls

hemispheric

asymmetry

has

been

observed

in

atten-tional

mechanisms

(Heilman,

Watson,

&

Valenstein,

2012).

If

audio-visua!

integration

is

deeply

attention, visual

field

asyTnmetry

in

audio-visuaL

interactions

should

be

ob-served according

to

hemispheric

asymmetry

in

attentional

mechanisms.

In

the

_present

study, we

investigated

this

asym-metry

in'the

facilitation

effect of audio-visual

interactions

us-ing

dual-stream

rapid serialvisual

_presentation

(RSVP)

tasks,

Experiment

1 We

compared

the

effects of an accompanying

tone

on

T2

identification

performance

between

the

left

visual

field

(LVF)

and

the

right visual

field

(RVF)

in

a

dual-stream

RSVP

task.

Stimuli.

The

two

targets

were

digits

composed ofline seg-ments.

White

digits

were

_presented

as

Tls,

while

black

digits

were used as

T2s.

Letters

of

the

alphabet, which were

com-posed

of

black

line

segments were

_presented

as

distractors,

and

the

line

segrnents

from

which

the

digits

apd

letters

were made were used

to

create amask stimulus.

AII

visual stimuli

within

1.0

×

1.00 size

were

presented

2.50 to

each side of

the

fixation

on a

_gray

background.

The

auditory stimulus, which was a

_pure

tone

with a

frequency

of

1250

Hz,

and sound

pres-sure

leLvel

of7S

dB,

was

_presented

for

50

ms,

Procedure.

Figure

1

schematically

depicts

a

trial,

Each

RSVP

streams consisted of

10

elements.

Tl

was

presented

in

either

the

left

_(half

of

the

trials)

or right

RSVP

stream;

T2

pre-sentations were

simtlarly

distributed

between

the

left

and

the

right

RSVP

streams,

The

temporal

distance

between

Tl

and

T2

(i.e.,

lag)

was eitheT

lag-1,

lag-2,

or

lag-5.

The

auditory

stimulus was

_presented

simultaneously with

the

onset of

T2.

Method

Participants.

A

group

of

9

right-handed observers

(6

women and

3

men)

_{participated.}

They

reported normal or

corrected-to-normal vision and normal audition.

'

_{Corresponding}

author.

Department

of

Psychology,

Graduate

School

of

Arts

&

Letters,

Tohoku

University;

27-1

Kawauchi,

Aoba-ku,

Sendai

980-8576,

Japan.

E-mail:yasuhiro,[email protected]

i

This

work

was

supported

by

the

Japanese

Society

for

the

Promotion

of

Science

KAKENHI

(Grant-in-Aid

for

JSPS

Fellows:

No,

24-4354),

copv

+

33

ms

blank

SO

ms+teOms

blank

T2

_(on

lag-1)

ee

Figure

1,

Outline

of

the

_paradigrn

used

in

Experiment

1.

right

2013.

The

Iapanese

Psychenomic

Seciety

AII

rights reserved.

(2)

The Japanese Psychonomic Society

NII-Electronic Library Service

TheJapanesePsychonomic Society

140 The

_Iapanese

_{IournalofPsychonemicScienceVbr.32,}

No.1

(a)S100;t

oo:tiwgr 7ots 60oe so8G 40 DTone-buen ± -Tane--n p<,05 Left Right T2lecationcondition

(b)

10PE.S so:t' acr 7otsit 60: sog

40 DTone-bsent eTone+n-T2 pc.e5n Left Right T2lecetienconditien

Figure

2. (a)

Accuracy

ofT2

identification

_CExperiment

1:

n=9)

and

(b)

Accuracy

ofT2

localization

ment

2i

n=8).

Error

bars

represent standard errors of

the

mean.

Participants

completed

288 trials:

2 (Tbne)

×

2 _(Tl-VF)

×

2 -(T2-VF)

×

3 (Lag)

×

12

repetitions.

Each

_participant

s

task

was

te

identify

the

digits

ofT1 and

T2.

Results

and

Discussion

The

accuracy of

identifying

T2

was calculated

by

_pooling

the

factor

of

Tl-VF

(Figure

2a).

A

three-way analysis of variance

(ANOVA)

with

Tone

(2)

×

T2-VF

(2)

×

Lag

(3)

was conducted.

The

interaction

between

Tbne

and

T2-VF

was significant

(F(1,

8)=6.91,

_p<.05,

_nS--

,46),

The

simple rnain

effect of

Ibne

was

significant

in

the

RVF

condition

Cp<,OOI),

indicating

that the cerrect

identification

_performance

is

higher

in

the

Tbne-on-T2

condition

than

in

the

Tbne-absent

condi-tion

when

T2

was

_presented

in

the

RVF.

In

contrast, the simple main effect ofIbne was

insignificant

in

the

LVF

cendi-tion

(p=.l2).

Experiment

2 We

investigated

the

visual

field

asymmetry of

the

auditery

facilitation

effect

in

a spatial

localization

task.

Method

A

group

of

8

right-handed observers

(4

women and

4

men),

6

of whom

did

not

_participate

_in

_Experiment

_1,

_partook

_in

the

experiment.

They

reported

nermal er corrected-to-normal vi-sion and normal audition.

The

visual

and

auditory

stirnuli

were

the

same as

Experiment

1,

but,

the

visual

stimuLi

were

present-ed randomly within a

2

×

2 (4,O

×

4.0e)

virtual

matrix.

Each

'

participant

s

task

was

to

report

the

locations

ofTl and

T2,

ResultsandDiscussion

The

accuracy

localizing

T2

was calculated

by

_peoling

the

factor

of

Tl-VF

(Figure

2b).

A

three-way

ANOXLPL

with

Tbne

(2)

×

T2-VF

(2)

×

Lag

(3)

was conducted.

The

interaction

be-tween

Ibne

and

T2-VF

was significant

{F(1,

7)=5,90,p<.OS,

n;=,46).

The

simple main effect of

Tbne

was

in

the

1/VF

con-dition

(p<.05),

indicating

that

T2

localization

_performance

was

higher

in

the

Tone-on-T2

condition

than

in

the

Tbne-absent

condition when

T2

was

_presented

in

the

I:VE

In

contrast,

the

simple main effect of

Tbne

was

insignificant

in

the

RVF

condition

(p

==

.27),

GeneralDiscussion

The

_present

study examined

the

relationship

between

the

facilitation

effect of audio-visual

integration

and

hemispheric

asymmetry

in

attentional mechanisrr]s.

Sound

in

the

RVF

facilitates

the

_performance

of

T2

identificatien.

In

contrast,

the

simultaneously

_presented

sound

impreved

T2

Iocalization

perfbrmance

in

the

LVE

The

RVF

(the

left

hemisphere)

is

advantageous

in

linguistic

processing;

whereas,

the

LVF

(the

right

hemisphere)

domi-nates spatial

_processing

(Geffen,

Bradshaw

&

Nettleton,

1972).

These

hemispheric

specializations corresponded

to

the

visual

field

asymmetry

in

the

facilitatien

effect

by

audie-visual

inter-actions observed

in

this

studv

We

assume

that

an auditory stimulus more strongly captures attention

in

the

dominant

hemisphere

based

on

the

types

of

perceptual

process,

produc-ing

visual

field

asymmetry

in

the

auditory

facilitation

effect.

References

Geffen,

G.,

BradshawL

J. I.,

&

Nettleton,

N. C,

_(1972),

spheric asymmetry:

Verbal

and spatial encoding of visual

stimuli,JburnalofExperimentalRsychology,95,25-31.

Heilman,

K,

_M.,

_Watson,

_R.

_T.,

_&

_Valenstein,

_E.

_(2012),

Neglect

and related

disorders.

In

Heilman,

K. M.,

&

Valenstein,

E. (Eds.)

Clinical

Nt]uropsychotogy

(5th

ed.),

ford,

New

Ybrk.

pp,

296-34S.

Tblsma,

D.,

Senkowski,

D.,

Soto-Faraco,

S,,

&

WOIdorffl

M. G,

{2elO).

The

multifaceted

interplay

between

attention and

multisensory