Chiou Rocco, Rich Anina N
Department of Cognitive Science, ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Macquarie University, NSW 2019, Australia.
Perception. 2012;41(3):339-53. doi: 10.1068/p7161.
The brain constantly integrates incoming signals across the senses to form a cohesive view of the world. Most studies on multisensory integration concern the roles of spatial and temporal parameters. However, recent findings suggest cross-modal correspondences (eg high-pitched sounds associated with bright, small objects located high up) also affect multisensory integration. Here, we focus on the association between auditory pitch and spatial location. Surprisingly little is known about the cognitive and perceptual roots of this phenomenon, despite its long use in ergonomic design. In a series of experiments, we explore how this cross-modal mapping affects the allocation of attention with an attentional cuing paradigm. Our results demonstrate that high and low tones induce attention shifts to upper or lower locations, depending on pitch height. Furthermore, this pitch-induced cuing effect is susceptible to contextual manipulations and volitional control. These findings suggest the cross-modal interaction between pitch and location originates from an attentional level rather than from response mapping alone. The flexible contextual mapping between pitch and location, as well as its susceptibility to top-down control, suggests the pitch-induced cuing effect is primarily mediated by cognitive processes after initial sensory encoding and occurs at a relatively late stage of voluntary attention orienting.
大脑不断整合来自各种感官的传入信号，以形成对世界的连贯认知。大多数关于多感官整合的研究关注空间和时间参数的作用。然而，最近的研究结果表明，跨模态对应关系（例如高音调声音与位于高处的明亮小物体相关联）也会影响多感官整合。在这里，我们关注听觉音高与空间位置之间的关联。尽管这种现象在人体工程学设计中早已被应用，但其认知和感知根源却鲜为人知。在一系列实验中，我们采用注意力提示范式探究这种跨模态映射如何影响注意力分配。我们的结果表明，高音和低音会根据音高高度将注意力转移到上部或下部位置。此外，这种音高诱导的提示效应易受情境操纵和意志控制的影响。这些发现表明，音高与位置之间的跨模态交互作用源自注意力层面，而非仅仅源于反应映射。音高与位置之间灵活的情境映射，以及其对自上而下控制的敏感性，表明音高诱导的提示效应主要在初始感官编码之后由认知过程介导，并发生在自愿注意力定向的相对后期阶段。
