On asymmetries in cross-modal spatial attention orienting

Abstract

In a previous study, Ward (1994) reported that spatially uninformative visual cues orient auditory attention but that spatially uninfonnative auditory cues fail to orient visual attention. This cross-modal asymmetry is consistent with other intersensory perceptual phenomena that are dominated by the visual modality (e.g., ventriloquism). However, Spence and Driver (1997) found exactly the opposite asymmetry under different experimental conditions and with a different task. In spite of the several differences between the two studies, Spence and Driver (see also Driver & Spence, 1998) argued that Ward'sfindings might have arisen from response-priming effects, and that the cross-modal asymmetry they themselves reported, in which auditory cues affect responses to visual targets but not vice versa, is in fact the correct result. The present study investigated cross-modal interactions in stimulus-driven spatial attention orienting under Ward's complex cue environment conditions using an experimental procedure that eliminates response-priming artifacts. The results demonstrate that the cross-modal asymmetry reported by Ward (1994) does occur when the cue environment is complex. Weargue that strategic effects in cross-modal stimulus-driven orienting of attention are responsible for the opposite asymmetries found by Ward and by Spence and Driver (1997).Several recent studies have investigated the extent to which there are cross-modal interactions in spatial attention (Buchtel & Butter, 1988;Butter, Buchtel, & Santucci, 1989;Farah, Wong, Monheit, & Morrow, 1989;Mondor & Amirault, 1998;Spence & Driver, 1996, 1997Spence, Nicholls, Gillespie, & Driver, 1998;Ward, 1994;Ward, McDonald, & Golestani, 1998). In one of these, Ward presented evidence that spatially uninformative visual cues orient auditory attention whereas spatially uninformative auditory cues fail to orient visual attention. On the basis of this evidence, Ward concluded that the neural mechanisms underlying stimulus-driven visual and auditory attention shifts are not completely modality specific, and speculated that stimulus-driven attention shifts are based on supramodal representations of space (see Farah et al., 1989). Importantly, however, the asymmetry in the cross-modal effects observed in Ward's experiment implies that such a supramodal representation is sometimes dominated by the visual modality and that conflicts in auditory and visual spatial information in these situations are resolved in favor ofthe visual input.Ward (1994) interpreted his cross-modal attention results in the context of cross-modal asymmetries in spatial perception. Humans and other higher organisms pos-

Cross-modal cueing in audiovisual spatial attention

“…The relationship between audition and vision in exogenous spatial attention is asymmetric-that is, exogenous auditory cues influence visual perception (Spence & Driver, 1994) but visual cues do not seem to affect auditory perception (Driver & Spence, 1998). These results are challenged by those of Ward (1994) and Ward, McDonald, and Lin (2000) who reported exactly the opposite asymmetry, albeit in different experimental setup with rather complex cueing and a nonspatial go/no-go task. The nonspatial response task was subsequently identified as the important difference between those studies (Spence, McDonald & Driver, 2004;Koelewijn, Bronkhorst & Theeuwes, 2010).…”

“…While many studies have reported cross-modal cueing effects of visual cues on auditory perception in endogenous cueing experiments (Farah et al 1989;Spence & Driver, 1996;Eimer & Schröger 1998), the results of studies involving exogenous cues are rather inconclusive (Buchtel & Butter, 1988;Spence & Driver, 1997;Ward et al 2000). In three experiments, we employed both types of cues in an audiovisual redundant signals task.…”

Sound source location modulates the irrelevant-sound effect

“…The front loudspeaker was also the location at which participants were to maintain the narrow beam of a headlight they were wearing-that is, the location that they were attending while trying to identify the syllables. Finally, when visual information directs spatial attention to a certain location, reactions to auditory targets occurring at that location are faster than reactions to targets occurring at other locations (Ward, McDonald, & Lin, 2000). In sum, these findings converge with the evidence reported in the present article that the orienting of spatial attention in one modality (the visual modality in the present case) affects attention in another modality (the auditory modality in the present case).…”

Head-centred meridian effect on auditory spatial attention orienting

“…Results from this line of research are also not conclusive. For instance, Ward (1994) and Ward, McDonald, and Lin (2000) reported that visual cues affect both visual and auditory localization, but auditory cues affect only auditory localization. Ward concluded that these results were not consistent with the hypothesis of modality-specific attentional mechanisms and suggested that the visual spatial attention system dominates over the auditory spatial attention system.…”