Department of Rehabilitation Science, Faculty of Health Sciences, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.
Department of Rehabilitation, Shinsapporo Paulo Hospital, Sapporo, Japan.
Medicine (Baltimore). 2022 Sep 9;101(36):e30330. doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000030330.
Cross-modal conflicts arise when information from multisensory modalities is incongruent. Most previous studies investigating audiovisual cross-modal conflicts have focused on visual targets with auditory distractors, and only a few studies have focused on auditory targets with visual distractors. Moreover, no study has investigated the differences in the impact of visual cross-modal conflict with semantic and nonsemantic competition and its neural basis. This cross-sectional study aimed to characterize the impact of 2 types of visual cross-modal conflicts with semantic and nonsemantic distractors through a working memory task and associated brain activities. The participants were 33 healthy, right-handed, young male adults. The paced auditory serial addition test was performed under 3 conditions: no-distractor and 2 types of visual distractor conditions (nonsemantic and semantic distractor conditions). Symbols and numbers were used as nonsemantic and semantic distractors, respectively. The oxygenated hemoglobin (Oxy-Hb) concentration in the frontoparietal regions, bilateral ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and inferior parietal cortex (IPC) were measured during the task under each condition. The results showed significantly lower paced auditory serial addition test performances in both distractor conditions than in the no-distractor condition, but no significant difference between the 2 distractor conditions. For brain activity, a significantly increased Oxy-Hb concentration in the right VLPFC was only observed in the nonsemantic distractor condition (corrected P = .015; Cohen d = .46). The changes in Oxy-Hb in the bilateral IPC were positively correlated with changes in task performance for both types of visual cross-modal distractor conditions. Visual cross-modal conflict significantly impairs auditory working memory task performance, regardless of the presence of semantic or nonsemantic distractors. The right VLPFC may be a crucial region to inhibit visual nonsemantic information in cross-modal conflict situations, and bilateral IPC may be closely linked with the inhibition of visual cross-modal distractor, regardless of the presence of semantic or nonsemantic distractors.
跨模态冲突是指多模态信息不一致时出现的冲突。大多数先前研究视听跨模态冲突的研究都集中在有听觉干扰物的视觉目标上，只有少数研究集中在有视觉干扰物的听觉目标上。此外，没有研究调查视觉跨模态冲突与语义和非语义竞争的影响差异及其神经基础。本横断面研究旨在通过工作记忆任务及其相关脑活动来描述 2 种具有语义和非语义干扰物的视觉跨模态冲突的影响。参与者为 33 名健康、右利手、年轻男性成年人。在无干扰物和 2 种视觉干扰物条件（非语义和语义干扰物条件）下进行了 paced auditory serial addition test。符号和数字分别用作非语义和语义干扰物。在每种条件下进行任务时，测量额顶区、双侧腹外侧前额叶皮层（VLPFC）、背外侧前额叶皮层和下顶叶皮层（IPC）的含氧血红蛋白（Oxy-Hb）浓度。结果显示，在 2 种干扰物条件下， paced auditory serial addition test 的表现明显低于无干扰物条件，但 2 种干扰物条件之间无显著差异。对于大脑活动，仅在非语义干扰物条件下观察到右侧 VLPFC 的 Oxy-Hb 浓度显著增加（校正 P =.015；Cohen d =.46）。双侧 IPC 的 Oxy-Hb 变化与 2 种类型的视觉跨模态干扰物条件下的任务表现变化呈正相关。视觉跨模态冲突显著损害听觉工作记忆任务的表现，无论是否存在语义或非语义干扰物。右侧 VLPFC 可能是在跨模态冲突情况下抑制视觉非语义信息的关键区域，双侧 IPC 可能与抑制视觉跨模态干扰物密切相关，无论是否存在语义或非语义干扰物。
