1. Methods Identifying the Costs of Auditory Dominance on Visual Processing: An Eye Tracking Study Wesley R. Barnhart, Samuel Rivera, & Christopher W. Robinson Abstract The processing of auditory, visual, and multimodal stimuli has generated a great amount of research indicating visual dominance over auditory dominance. The present study uses an eye tracker and behavioral measures to examine how cross-modal presentation affects visual processing. Results indicate auditory dominance; auditory stimuli slow down visual response times. Participants made longer fixations and were slower at making their first fixation when visual stimuli were paired with sounds. Conclusions Introduction Results Methods Introduction References Cross-modal presentation has been found to impact the processing of one modality (Colavita, 1974; Robinson & Sloutsky, 2004; Sloutsky & Napolitano, 2003). Forty years of research with adults has indicated visual dominance (Colavita, 1974). Trying to reverse this effect has failed, with much of this research strengthening the proposed mechanism of visual dominance (Ngo et al., 2010; see Sinnet et al, 2007; 2008, and Spence, 2009, for reviews). Recent research has modeled a different pattern: auditory dominance (Robinson & Sloutsky, 2004). Developmental research has pinpointed this effect, with visual processing appearing to be attenuated in the presence of auditory stimuli. The present study sought to further this finding of auditory dominance in an adult population. Participants 29 psychology undergraduate students completed unimodal visual and cross-modal conditions. All participants reported normal hearing and vision. Stimuli Nonlinguistic sounds stimuli were created using Audacity; visual stimuli were created in PowerPoint (see Figure 1). Procedure Determine if pairs of stimuli were exactly the same or different. Visual response times slower in cross-modal condition than in unimodal condition, t (28) = 3.69, p <..001. Dependent Measure Unimodal Condition (SE) Cross-modal Condition (SE) Paired t (df) p value Mean Fixation Duration* 296 (13)347 (24)2.63 (28).014 Prop. Looking to Relevant AOIs.15 (.02).14 (.02)-0.50 (28).619 Number of Fixations 1.10 (.11)1.07 (.11)-0.27 (28).792 Mean Pupil Size* 214 (11)228 (13)2.14 (28).041 Latency of First Look* 334 (17)409 (30)3.13 (28).004 Latency First Look to Relevant AOI* 479 (35)624 (54)2.72 (17).015 Colavita, F.B. (1974). Human Sensory Dominance. Perception & Psychophysics, 16, 409-412. Ngo, K.M., Sinnet, S., Soto-Franco, S., & Spence, C. (2010). Repetition Blindness and the Colavita Effect. Neuroscience Letters, 480(3), 186-190. Robinson, C. W., Ahmar, N., & Sloutsky, V. M. (2010). Evidence for auditory dominance in a passive oddball task. In S. Ohlsson & R. Catrambone (Eds.), Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp 2644-2649). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society. Robinson, C. W., & Sloutsky, V. M. (2004). Auditory dominance and its change in the course of development. Child Development, 75, 1387-1401. Robinson, C.W., & Sloutsky, V.M. (2010). Development of cross-modal processing. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 1, 135-141. Sinnet, S., Soto-Faraco, S., & Spence, C. (2008). The co-occurrence of multisensory competition and facilitation. Acta Psychologica, 128, 153-161. Sinnet, S., Spence, C. & Soto-Faraco, S. (2007). Visual dominance and attention: Revisting the Colavita effect. Perception & Psychophysics, 69, 673-686. Sloutsky, V.M., & Napolitano A (2003). Is a picture worth a thousand words? Preference for auditory modality in young children. Child Development, 74, 822-833. Sloutsky, V.M. & Robinson, C.W. (2008). The role of words and sounds in visual processing: From overshadowing to attentional tuning. Cognitive Science, 32, 342-365. Spence, C. (2009). Explaining the Colavita visual dominance effect. Progress in Brain Research, 176, 245–258. Table 1: Means, Standard Errors, Paired t’s, and p’s across the unimodal and cross-modal conditions. Note: “*” denotes that p <.05 Results consistent with auditory dominance in cross- modal visual condition: auditory stimuli attenuate visual processing compared to unimodal visual condition. Increased fixation durations and slower latencies of first look are consistent with a proposed mechanism of auditory dominance (Robinson & Sloutsky, 2010). Future research should further examine eye tracking variables to provide potential insights. Additional work should mimic this present study in younger populations. DiffFix Dur.% Rel.Fix #PupilLat.Lat. First Diff---.47*.20.42*-.36*-.04.52* Fix Dur. ----.21-.19-.23-.10.55* % Rel. ---.33.00.26-.12 Fix # ----.22-.24-.17 Pupil Size ---.27.03 Lat. ---.43 Lat. First --- Table 2: Mean Fixation Duration, Number of Fixations, Mean Pupil Size, and Latency of First Look to Relevant AOIs correlated with the cost of auditory input on visual processing (i.e., RT on Cross-modal visual minus RT on Unimodal Visual). None of the dependent measures in the unimodal condition significantly correlated with Diff. Note: “*” denotes that p <.05. Cross Modal 1s1s Same New A New V Both New 1s1s A1 A2 A1 Same New V 1 s Unimodal Visual Figure 1: Trial types presented.