Developmental Differences in Filtering Auditory and Visual Distractors During Visual Selective Attention

Modality-specific impacts of distractors on visual and auditory categorical decision-making: an evidence accumulation perspective

Our brain constantly processes multisensory inputs to make decisions and guide behaviors, but how goal-relevant processes are influenced by irrelevant information is unclear. Here, we investigated the effects of intermodal and intramodal task-irrelevant information on visual and auditory categorical decision-making. In both visual and auditory tasks, we manipulated the modality of irrelevant inputs (visual vs. auditory vs. none) and used linear discrimination analysis of EEG and hierarchical drift-diffusion modeling (HDDM) to identify when and how task-irrelevant information affected decision-relevant processing. The results revealed modality-specific impacts of irrelevant inputs on visual and auditory categorical decision-making. The distinct effects on the visual task were shown on the neural components, with auditory distractors amplifying the sensory processing whereas visual distractors amplifying the post-sensory process. Conversely, the distinct effects on the auditory task were shown in behavioral performance and underlying cognitive processes. Visual distractors facilitate behavioral performance and affect both stages, but auditory distractors interfere with behavioral performance and impact on the sensory processing rather than the post-sensory decision stage. Overall, these findings suggested that auditory distractors affect the sensory processing stage of both tasks while visual distractors affect the post-sensory decision stage of visual categorical decision-making and both stages of auditory categorical decision-making. This study provides insights into how humans process information from multiple sensory modalities during decision-making by leveraging modality-specific impacts.

An Exploration of the Effects of Cross-Modal Tasks on Selective Attention

Successful performance of a task relies on selectively attending to the target, while ignoring distractions. Studies on perceptual load theory (PLT), conducted involving independent tasks with visual and auditory modalities, have shown that if a task is low-load, distractors and the target are both processed. If the task is high-load, distractions are not processed. The current study expands these findings by considering the effect of cross-modality (target and distractor from separate modalities) and congruency (similarity of target and distractor) on selective attention, using a word-identification task. Parameters were analysed, including response time, accuracy rates, congruency of distractions, and subjective report of load. In contrast to past studies on PLT, the results of the current study show that modality (congruency of the distractors) had a significant effect and load had no effect on selective attention. This study demonstrates that subjective measurement of load is important when studying perceptual load and selective attention.

Framing the area: An efficient approach for avoiding visual interference and optimising visual search in adolescents

Attentional resources are limited, and resistance to interference plays a critical role during cognitive tasks and learning. Previous studies have shown that participants find it difficult to avoid being distracted by global visual information when processing local details. In this study, we investigated an innovative approach for enhancing the processing of local visual details by middle-school adolescents. Two groups completed a classic global/local visual search task in which a predefined target could appear at the global or local level, either with or without a frame. The results from the no-frame display group provided a direct replication in adolescents of previous findings in adults, with increasing number of interferent stimuli presented in the display adversely affecting detection of local targets. In addition, by varying the numbers of distractors inside and outside the frame, we showed that distractors only interfered with the processing of local information inside the frame, while the deleterious impact of increases in distracting information was prevented when the distractors were outside the frame. These findings suggest that when a frame delimits an attentional area, the influence of an increasing number of distractors present outside the frame is eliminated. We assume that application of a frame allows for efficient delimitation of attention deployment to a restricted topographical visual area in adolescents. These results evidence that processing of local details can be improved without modifying the structure of the stimuli, and provide promising clues for optimising attentional resources during time-absorbing visual searches. Applicable implications in the educational field are discussed.

Computerized Music-Reading Intervention Improves Resistance to Unisensory Distraction Within a Multisensory Task, in Young and Older Adults

Incoming information from multiple sensory channels compete for attention. Processing the relevant ones and ignoring distractors, while at the same time monitoring the environment for potential threats, is crucial for survival, throughout the lifespan. However, sensory and cognitive mechanisms often decline in aging populations, making them more susceptible to distraction. Previous interventions in older adults have successfully improved resistance to distraction, but the inclusion of multisensory integration, with its unique properties in attentional capture, in the training protocol is underexplored. Here, we studied whether, and how, a 4-week intervention, which targets audiovisual integration, affects the ability to deal with task-irrelevant unisensory deviants within a multisensory task. Musically naïve participants engaged in a computerized music reading game and were asked to detect audiovisual incongruences between the pitch of a song's melody and the position of a disk on the screen, similar to a simplistic music staff. The effects of the intervention were evaluated via behavioral and EEG measurements in young and older adults. Behavioral findings include the absence of age-related differences in distraction and the indirect improvement of performance due to the intervention, seen as an amelioration of response bias. An asymmetry between the effects of auditory and visual deviants was identified and attributed to modality dominance. The electroencephalographic results showed that both groups shared an increase in activation strength after training, when processing auditory deviants, located in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. A functional connectivity analysis revealed that only young adults improved flow of information, in a network comprised of a fronto-parietal subnetwork and a multisensory temporal area. Overall, both behavioral measures and neurophysiological findings suggest that the intervention was indirectly successful, driving a shift in response strategy in the cognitive domain and higher-level or multisensory brain areas, and leaving lower level unisensory processing unaffected.

Selective Auditory Attention Associated With Language Skills but Not With Executive Functions in Swedish Preschoolers

Associations between language and executive functions (EFs) are well-established but previous work has often focused more on EFs than on language. To further clarify the language-EF relationship, we assessed several aspects of language and EFs in 431 Swedish children aged 4-6, including selective auditory attention which was measured in an event-related potential paradigm. We also investigated potential associations to age, socioeconomic status (SES), bi-/multilingualism, sex and aspects of preschool attendance and quality. Language and EFs correlated weakly to moderately, indicating that relying on measures of vocabulary alone may overestimate the strength of the language-EF relationship. Contrary to predictions, we found no correlations between selective attention and EFs. There were however correlations between morphosyntactic accuracy and selective auditory attention which is in line with previous work and suggests a specific link between morphosyntax and the ability to suppress irrelevant stimuli. In Sweden, socioeconomic differences are rather small and preschool is universally available, but nevertheless, aspects of parental SES predicted children's performance on all measures. Bi-/multilingual children performed lower on language also when controlling for SES, highlighting the need for interventions to reduce inequalities in educational outcomes already in preschool. A female advantage was found for both language and EFs, whereas preschool attendance and quality were not significantly related to outcome measures. Future work should include longitudinal studies of language and EF development, include children from diverse SES backgrounds and contribute toward a theoretical framework that further clarifies the language-EF relationship.

Crossmodal spatial distraction across the lifespan

The ability to resist distracting stimuli whilst voluntarily focusing on a task is fundamental to our everyday cognitive functioning. Here, we investigated how this ability develops, and thereafter declines, across the lifespan using a single task/experiment. Young children (5-7 years), older children (10-11 years), young adults (20-27 years), and older adults (62-86 years) were presented with complex visual scenes. Endogenous (voluntary) attention was engaged by having the participants search for a visual target presented on either the left or right side of the display. The onset of the visual scenes was preceded - at stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of 50, 200, or 500 ms - by a task-irrelevant sound (an exogenous crossmodal spatial distractor) delivered either on the same or opposite side as the visual target, or simultaneously on both sides (cued, uncued, or neutral trials, respectively). Age-related differences were revealed, especially in the extreme age-groups, which showed a greater impact of crossmodal spatial distractors. Young children were highly susceptible to exogenous spatial distraction at the shortest SOA (50 ms), whereas older adults were distracted at all SOAs, showing significant exogenous capture effects during the visual search task. By contrast, older children and young adults' search performance was not significantly affected by crossmodal spatial distraction. Overall, these findings present a detailed picture of the developmental trajectory of endogenous resistance to crossmodal spatial distraction from childhood to old age and demonstrate a different efficiency in coping with distraction across the four age-groups studied.

Children cannot ignore what they hear: Incongruent emotional information leads to an auditory dominance in children

Effective emotion recognition is imperative to successfully navigating social situations. Research suggests differing developmental trajectories for the recognition of bodily and vocal emotion, but emotions are usually studied in isolation and rarely considered as multimodal stimuli in the literature. When adults are presented with basic multimodal sensory stimuli, the Colavita effect suggests that they have a visual dominance, whereas more recent research finds that an auditory sensory dominance may be present in children under 8 years of age. However, it is not currently known whether this phenomenon holds for more complex multimodal social stimuli. Here we presented children and adults with multimodal social stimuli consisting of emotional bodies and voices, asking them to recognize the emotion in one modality while ignoring the other. We found that adults can perform this task with no detrimental effects on performance regardless of whether the ignored emotion was congruent or not. However, children find it extremely challenging to recognize bodily emotion while trying to ignore incongruent vocal emotional information. In several instances, they performed below chance level, indicating that the auditory modality actively informs their choice of bodily emotion. Therefore, this is the first evidence, to our knowledge, of an auditory dominance in children when presented with emotionally meaningful stimuli.

Are two cues always better than one? The role of multiple intra-sensory cues compared to multi-cross-sensory cues in children's incidental category learning

Simultaneous presentation of multisensory cues has been found to facilitate children's learning to a greater extent than unisensory cues (e.g., Broadbent, White, Mareschal, & Kirkham, 2017). Current research into children's multisensory learning, however, does not address whether these findings are due to having multiple cross-sensory cues that enhance stimuli perception or a matter of having multiple cues, regardless of modality, that are informative to category membership. The current study examined the role of multiple cross-sensory cues (e.g., audio-visual) compared to multiple intra-sensory cues (e.g., two visual cues) on children's incidental category learning. On a computerized incidental category learning task, children aged six to ten years (N = 454) were allocated to either a visual-only (V: unisensory), auditory-only (A: unisensory), audio-visual (AV: multisensory), Visual-Visual (VV: multi-cue) or Auditory-Auditory (AA: multi-cue) condition. In children over eight years of age, the availability of two informative cues, regardless of whether they had been presented across two different modalities or within the same modality, was found to be more beneficial to incidental learning than with unisensory cues. In six-year-olds, however, the presence of multiple auditory cues (AA) did not facilitate learning to the same extent as multiple visual cues (VV) or when cues were presented across two different modalities (AV). The findings suggest that multiple sensory cues presented across or within modalities may have differential effects on children's incidental learning across middle childhood, depending on the sensory domain in which they are presented. Implications for the use of multi-cross-sensory and multiple-intra-sensory cues for children's learning across this age range are discussed.