The crossmodal spotlight of visual attention for proximal-distal tactile cueing

Roslizawaty Mohd Rosli, Purdue University

Abstract

Past studies have established a crossmodal spatial attentional link among vision, audition and touch. The present study examined how visual attention depended on the distance between a distal visual target (a changing element among static distractors) and the quadrant of the visual display cued by a proximal tactile stimulus. The distance between the center of the cued visual quadrant and the visual target was controlled to be at one of six possible values: 0, 90, 180, 350, 450 and 550 pixels. The distances of 0, 90, and 180 corresponded to the valid tactile cueing condition where the tactile cue and the visual target occurred in the same quadrant. The distances of 350, 450, and 550 corresponded to the invalid tactile cueing condition where the tactilely-cued quadrant did not match that of the visual change. Results from 10 participants showed that the mean response time increased with respect to the cue-target distance, thereby confirming a crossmodal spotlight of visual attention for proximal-distal tactile cueing. In addition, the response times for valid tactile cues were significantly smaller than those for invalid tactile cues, confirming numerous earlier findings that valid tactile cues facilitated visual search and invalid tactile cues interfered with visual search. These findings have implications for the design of multimodal attention cueing systems with many practical applications such as collision warning systems in automobiles.

Degree

M.S.E.C.E.

Advisors

Proctor, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Electrical engineering|Cognitive psychology

COinS