The absence of cross-modal forward facilitation of the auditory and somatosensory N1 ERP peaks at intervals less than 300 milliseconds reveals a dissociation with simultaneous and temporal order judgement task performance.
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1
University of Newcastle, School of Psychology, Australia
Multisensory integration (MSI) refers to a neural process whereby sensory information from separate modalities is combined to form a unified multimodal percept. Perceptual studies using the Simultaneity Judgment (SJT) and Temporal Order Judgement (TOJ) tasks indicate that MSI occurs over a brief 300 millisecond interval or temporal window of multisensory integration (TWMI). The aim of the present research was to determine whether forward facilitation of the N1 ERP peak observed for within-modality repetitions of auditory and tactile stimulation at intervals less than 300 milliseconds is also evident for cross-modal repetitions of auditory and tactile stimuli. Further, we examined whether the temporal pattern of cross-modal N1 forward facilitation was consistent with the TWMI as measured by SJT and TOJ performance.
To achieve this 43 participants were presented with binaural auditory or bilateral tactile stimuli at random stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA) between 50 and 650 ms during a 64 channel EEG recording. The EEG was epoched and sub averaged according to within (AA, TT) and across (TA, AT) modality stimulus sequence (T=tactile, A=auditory) and SOA range (6 x 100 ms SOA ranges between 50 and 650 ms). SJT and TOJ performance was also measured using the same stimuli and SOA ranges as used for the EEG recording. Using a 2(modality) X 2(sequence) x 6(SOA) analysis design the results replicated prior ERP research where both the auditory and somatosensory ERPs showed forward facilitation of the N1 peak at SOAs less than 300 ms. Similarly, SJT and TOJ performance for the same participants showed the expected MSI effects at SOAs below 300 ms. However no cross-modal N1 forward facilitation was obtained for either auditory or somatosensory ERPs. The results are discussed in terms of the potential limitations when interpreting SJT and TOJ performance as a measure of temporal integration of sensory information.
Keywords:
Temporal Integration,
multisensory integration,
N1 ERP,
Simultaneous Judgement Task,
Temporal order judgment
Conference:
ASP2015 - 25th Annual Conference of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology, Sydney, Australia, 2 Dec - 4 Dec, 2015.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Psychophysiology
Citation:
Griffith
K,
Woods
E,
Timora
JR and
Budd
TW
(2015). The absence of cross-modal forward facilitation of the auditory and somatosensory N1 ERP peaks at intervals less than 300 milliseconds reveals a dissociation with simultaneous and temporal order judgement task performance..
Conference Abstract:
ASP2015 - 25th Annual Conference of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.219.00006
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Received:
07 Nov 2015;
Published Online:
30 Nov 2015.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Timothy W Budd, University of Newcastle, School of Psychology, Ourimbah, NSW, 2258, Australia, Bill.Budd@newcastle.edu.au