Cross-modal attentional effects of rhythmic sensory stimulation

Autor(en)

Ulrich Pomper, Bence Szaszkó, Simon Pfister, Ulrich Ansorge

Abstrakt

Temporal regularities are ubiquitous in our environment. The theory of entrainment posits that the brain can utilize these regularities by synchronizing neural activity with external events, thereby, aligning moments of high neural excitability with expected upcoming stimuli and facilitating perception. Despite numerous accounts reporting entrainment of behavioural and electrophysiological measures, evidence regarding this phenomenon remains mixed, with several recent studies having failed to provide confirmatory evidence. Notably, it is currently unclear whether and for how long the effects of entrainment can persist beyond their initiating stimulus, and whether they remain restricted to the stimulated sensory modality or can cross over to other modalities. Here, we set out to answer these questions by presenting participants with either visual or auditory rhythmic sensory stimulation, followed by a visual or auditory target at six possible time points, either in-phase or out-of-phase relative to the initial stimulus train. Unexpectedly, but in line with several recent studies, we observed no evidence for cyclic fluctuations in performance, despite our design being highly similar to those used in previous demonstrations of sensory entrainment. However, our data revealed a temporally less specific attentional effect, via cross-modally facilitated performance following auditory compared with visual rhythmic stimulation. In addition to a potentially higher salience of auditory rhythms, this could indicate an effect on oscillatory 3-Hz amplitude, resulting in facilitated cognitive control and attention. In summary, our study further challenges the generality of periodic behavioural modulation associated with sensory entrainment, while demonstrating a modality-independent attention effect following auditory rhythmic stimulation.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Psychologie der Kognition, Emotion und Methoden, Forschungsverbund Kognitionswissenschaft, Forschungsplattform Mediatisierte Lebenswelten: Die narrativen Konstruktionen, Verbindungen und Aneignungen Jugendlicher

Externe Organisation(en)

Universität Wien

Journal

Attention, Perception & Psychophysics

Band

85

Seiten

863-878

Anzahl der Seiten

16

ISSN

1943-3921

DOI

https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-022-02611-2

Publikationsdatum

11-2022

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

501001 Allgemeine Psychologie, 501011 Kognitionspsychologie, 501006 Experimentalpsychologie

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Sensory Systems, Language and Linguistics, Linguistics and Language

Link zum Portal

https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/crossmodal-attentional-effects-of-rhythmic-sensory-stimulation(b815b44c-e638-4b6a-8377-6b1505cf57a0).html