Cerebral Cortex Advance Access originally published online on September 11, 2008
Cerebral Cortex 2009 19(5):993-1007; doi:10.1093/cercor/bhn148
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The Effects of Stimulus Modality and Frequency of Stimulus Presentation on Cross-modal Distraction
1 The Mind Research Network, Pete and Nancy Domenici Hall, 1101 Yale Boulevard NE, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA, 2 Department of Neurology, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA, 3 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA, 4 New Mexico Veterans Affairs Health Care System, Research Service, Albuquerque, NM 87108, USA, 5 Department of Psychiatry, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA, 6 Department of Radiology, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA 92122, USA, 7 San Diego Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, Research Service, San Diego, CA 92161, USA
Address correspondence to Andrew Mayer, PhD, The Mind Research Network, Pete and Nancy Domenici Hall, 1101 Yale Boulevard NE, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA. Email: amayer{at}mrn.org.
Selective attention produces enhanced activity (attention-related modulations [ARMs]) in cortical regions corresponding to the attended modality and suppressed activity in cortical regions corresponding to the ignored modality. However, effects of behavioral context (e.g., temporal vs. spatial tasks) and basic stimulus properties (i.e., stimulus frequency) on ARMs are not fully understood. The current study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate selectively attending and responding to either a visual or auditory metronome in the presence of asynchronous cross-modal distractors of 3 different frequencies (0.5, 1, and 2 Hz). Attending to auditory information while ignoring visual distractors was generally more efficient (i.e., required coordination of a smaller network) and less effortful (i.e., decreased interference and presence of ARMs) than attending to visual information while ignoring auditory distractors. However, these effects were modulated by stimulus frequency, as attempting to ignore auditory information resulted in the obligatory recruitment of auditory cortical areas during infrequent (0.5 Hz) stimulation. Robust ARMs were observed in both visual and auditory cortical areas at higher frequencies (2 Hz), indicating that participants effectively allocated attention to more rapidly presented targets. In summary, results provide neuroanatomical correlates for the dominance of the auditory modality in behavioral contexts that are highly dependent on temporal processing.
Key Words: auditory • FMRI • paced tapping • selective attention • temporal processing • visual
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