Lee Jae, Spence Charles
Crossmodal Research Laboratory, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Crossmodal Research Laboratory, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2017 Jun;177:78-88. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2017.04.012. Epub 2017 May 5.
It is generally-accepted that the presentation of an auditory cue will direct an observer's spatial attention to the region of space from where it originates and therefore facilitate responses to visual targets presented there rather than from a different position within the cued hemifield. However, to date, there has been surprisingly limited evidence published in support of such within-hemifield crossmodal exogenous spatial cuing effects. Here, we report two experiments designed to investigate within- and between-hemifield spatial cuing effects in the case of audiovisual exogenous covert orienting. Auditory cues were presented from one of four frontal loudspeakers (two on either side of central fixation). There were eight possible visual target locations (one above and another below each of the loudspeakers). The auditory cues were evenly separated laterally by 30° in Experiment 1, and by 10° in Experiment 2. The potential cue and target locations were separated vertically by approximately 19° in Experiment 1, and by 4° in Experiment 2. On each trial, the participants made a speeded elevation (i.e., up vs. down) discrimination response to the visual target following the presentation of a spatially-nonpredictive auditory cue. Within-hemifield spatial cuing effects were observed only when the auditory cues were presented from the inner locations. Between-hemifield spatial cuing effects were observed in both experiments. Taken together, these results demonstrate that crossmodal exogenous shifts of spatial attention depend on the eccentricity of both the cue and target in a way that has not been made explicit by previous research.
人们普遍认为，呈现听觉线索会将观察者的空间注意力引向其起源的空间区域，因此有助于对在该位置呈现的视觉目标做出反应，而不是对提示半视野内不同位置的视觉目标做出反应。然而，迄今为止，令人惊讶的是，支持这种半视野内跨模态外源性空间线索效应的证据发表得很少。在这里，我们报告了两个实验，旨在研究视听外源性隐蔽定向情况下的半视野内和半视野间空间线索效应。听觉线索由四个前置扬声器之一发出（中央注视点两侧各有两个）。有八个可能的视觉目标位置（每个扬声器上方和下方各一个）。在实验1中，听觉线索在水平方向上均匀间隔30°，在实验2中为10°。在实验1中，潜在的线索和目标位置在垂直方向上间隔约19°，在实验2中为4°。在每次试验中，参与者在呈现空间上不可预测的听觉线索后，对视觉目标做出快速的上下辨别反应。仅当听觉线索从内侧位置发出时，才观察到半视野内空间线索效应。在两个实验中均观察到了半视野间空间线索效应。综上所述，这些结果表明，空间注意力的跨模态外源性转移在某种程度上取决于线索和目标的离心率，而这一点以前的研究并未明确指出。
