The Impact of Joint Attention on the Sound- Induced Flash Illusions

authored by: Lucas Battich, Isabelle Garzorz, Basil Wahn, Ophelia Deroy
Abstract: Humans coordinate their focus of attention with others, either by gaze following or prior agreement. Though the effects of joint attention on perceptual and cognitive processing tend to be examined in purely visual environments, they should also show in multisensory settings. According to a prevalent hypothesis, joint attention enhances visual information encoding and processing, over and above individual attention. If two individuals jointly attend to the visual components of an audiovisual event, this should affect the weighing of visual information during multisensory integration. We tested this prediction in this preregistered study, using the well-documented sound-induced flash illusions, where the integration of an incongruent number of visual flashes and auditory beeps results in a single flash being seen as two (fission illusion) and two flashes as one (fusion illusion). Participants were asked to count flashes either alone or together, and expected to be less prone to both fission and fusion illusions when they jointly attended to the visual targets. However, illusions were as frequent when people attended to the flashes alone or with someone else, even though they responded faster during joint attention. Our results reveal the limitations of the theory that joint attention enhances visual processing as it does not affect temporal audiovisual integration.
Organisation(s): Institute of Psychology
External Organisation(s): Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU)
University of British Columbia
University of London
Type: Article
Journal: Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics
Volume: 83
Pages: 3056-3068
No. of pages: 13
ISSN: 1943-3921
Publication date: 11.2021
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Sensory Systems, Language and Linguistics, Linguistics and Language
Electronic version(s): https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-021-02347-5 (Access: Open)

BibTeX

@article{c5a9c3c8537a496f87877a0f101d5ac0,
title = "The Impact of Joint Attention on the Sound- Induced Flash Illusions",
abstract = "Humans coordinate their focus of attention with others, either by gaze following or prior agreement. Though the effects of joint attention on perceptual and cognitive processing tend to be examined in purely visual environments, they should also show in multisensory settings. According to a prevalent hypothesis, joint attention enhances visual information encoding and processing, over and above individual attention. If two individuals jointly attend to the visual components of an audiovisual event, this should affect the weighing of visual information during multisensory integration. We tested this prediction in this preregistered study, using the well-documented sound-induced flash illusions, where the integration of an incongruent number of visual flashes and auditory beeps results in a single flash being seen as two (fission illusion) and two flashes as one (fusion illusion). Participants were asked to count flashes either alone or together, and expected to be less prone to both fission and fusion illusions when they jointly attended to the visual targets. However, illusions were as frequent when people attended to the flashes alone or with someone else, even though they responded faster during joint attention. Our results reveal the limitations of the theory that joint attention enhances visual processing as it does not affect temporal audiovisual integration.",
keywords = "Joint attention, Multisensory integration, Sound-induced flash illusion",
author = "Lucas Battich and Isabelle Garzorz and Basil Wahn and Ophelia Deroy",
note = "Funding information: We acknowledge the support of a DFG research fellowship (WA 4153/2-1) awarded to B.W. O.D. was supported by a grant from the Excellence Initiative in the LMU, and a grant from the NOMIS foundation (acronym DISE).",
year = "2021",
month = nov,
doi = "10.3758/s13414-021-02347-5",
language = "English",
volume = "83",
pages = "3056--3068",
journal = "Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics",
issn = "1943-3921",
publisher = "Springer New York",
number = "8",
}