Crossmodal facilitation of masked visual target identification.

In the present study, participants identified the location of a visual target presented in a rapidly masked, changing sequence of visual distractors. In Experiment 1, we examined performance when a high tone, embedded in a sequence of low tones, was presented in synchrony with the visual target and...

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Main Authors: Ngo, M, Spence, C
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: 2010
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author Ngo, M
Spence, C
author_facet Ngo, M
Spence, C
author_sort Ngo, M
collection OXFORD
description In the present study, participants identified the location of a visual target presented in a rapidly masked, changing sequence of visual distractors. In Experiment 1, we examined performance when a high tone, embedded in a sequence of low tones, was presented in synchrony with the visual target and observed that the high tone improved visual target identification, relative to a condition in which a low tone was synchronized with the visual target, thus replicating Vroomen and de Gelder's (2000, Experiment 1) findings. In subsequent experiments, we presented a single visual, auditory, vibrotactile, or combined audiotactile cue with the visual target and found similar improvements in participants' performance regardless of cue type. These results suggest that crossmodal perceptual organization may account for only a part of the improvement in participants' visual target identification performance reported in Vroomen and de Gelder's original study. Moreover, in contrast with many previous crossmodal cuing studies, our results also suggest that visual cues can enhance visual target identification performance. Alternative accounts for these results are discussed in terms of enhanced saliency, the presence of a temporal marker, and attentional capture by oddball stimuli as potential explanations for the observed performance benefits.
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spelling oxford-uuid:0096a4f3-bbf6-4bfb-8c78-abc7b51249e92022-03-26T08:30:20ZCrossmodal facilitation of masked visual target identification.Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:0096a4f3-bbf6-4bfb-8c78-abc7b51249e9EnglishSymplectic Elements at Oxford2010Ngo, MSpence, CIn the present study, participants identified the location of a visual target presented in a rapidly masked, changing sequence of visual distractors. In Experiment 1, we examined performance when a high tone, embedded in a sequence of low tones, was presented in synchrony with the visual target and observed that the high tone improved visual target identification, relative to a condition in which a low tone was synchronized with the visual target, thus replicating Vroomen and de Gelder's (2000, Experiment 1) findings. In subsequent experiments, we presented a single visual, auditory, vibrotactile, or combined audiotactile cue with the visual target and found similar improvements in participants' performance regardless of cue type. These results suggest that crossmodal perceptual organization may account for only a part of the improvement in participants' visual target identification performance reported in Vroomen and de Gelder's original study. Moreover, in contrast with many previous crossmodal cuing studies, our results also suggest that visual cues can enhance visual target identification performance. Alternative accounts for these results are discussed in terms of enhanced saliency, the presence of a temporal marker, and attentional capture by oddball stimuli as potential explanations for the observed performance benefits.
spellingShingle Ngo, M
Spence, C
Crossmodal facilitation of masked visual target identification.
title Crossmodal facilitation of masked visual target identification.
title_full Crossmodal facilitation of masked visual target identification.
title_fullStr Crossmodal facilitation of masked visual target identification.
title_full_unstemmed Crossmodal facilitation of masked visual target identification.
title_short Crossmodal facilitation of masked visual target identification.
title_sort crossmodal facilitation of masked visual target identification
work_keys_str_mv AT ngom crossmodalfacilitationofmaskedvisualtargetidentification
AT spencec crossmodalfacilitationofmaskedvisualtargetidentification