Cross-modal attentional effects of rhythmic sensory stimulation
- Author(s)
- Ulrich Pomper, Bence Szaszkó, Simon Pfister, Ulrich Ansorge
- Abstract
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(s)
- Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, Vienna Cognitive Science Hub, Research Platform Mediatised Lifeworlds: Young people's narrative constructions, connections and appropriations
- External organisation(s)
- Universität Wien
- Journal
- Attention, Perception & Psychophysics
- Volume
- 85
- Pages
- 863-878
- No. of pages
- 16
- ISSN
- 1943-3921
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-022-02611-2
- Publication date
- 11-2022
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 501001 General psychology, 501011 Cognitive psychology, 501006 Experimental psychology
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Sensory Systems, Language and Linguistics, Linguistics and Language
- Portal url
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/crossmodal-attentional-effects-of-rhythmic-sensory-stimulation(b815b44c-e638-4b6a-8377-6b1505cf57a0).html