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Modality-dependent bottom-up attention and eye gaze direction affect auditory spatial discrimination.

Overview

Authors: René Šebeňa1, Jyrki Ahveninen2, Virginia Best3, Barbara Shinn-Cunningham4, Norbert Kopčo5
  1. Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, P. J. Šafárik University, Košice, Slovak Republic
  2. Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA USA
  3. Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA USA
  4. Neuroscience Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA USA
  5. Institute of Computer Science, Faculty of Science, P. J. Šafárik University, Jesenná 5, 040 01 Košice, Slovak Republic
Institutions: University of Pavol Jozef Šafárik (Slovakia); Harvard University (United States); Massachusetts General Hospital (United States); Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging (United States); Boston University (United States); Carnegie Mellon University (United States)
Journal: Attention, perception & psychophysics, volume 88, issue 6, article 158
Dates: received 4 September 2025; accepted 3 June 2026; published online 9 July 2026; in print 2026
Type: Research article · Language: English
License: CC BY
Identifiers: DOI 10.3758/s13414-026-03305-9 · PMID 42426421 · PMCID PMC13350116 · OpenAlex W7167842884
Open access: hybrid, a free copy (OpenAlex)
Status: code on request
Categories: EEG (modality), human (organism), cognitive (subfield)
Methods: Statistics, Evoked potentials, Physiology & signal measures
Keywords: Bottom-up attention, Auditory spatial discrimination, EEG, Crossmodal perception
MeSH: Attention*, Auditory Perception*, Discrimination, Psychological*, Fixation, Ocular*, Space Perception*, Visual Perception*, Adult, Cues, Electroencephalography, Female, Humans, Male, Young Adult (* major topic)
Topic: Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies (Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuroscience), according to OpenAlex
Funding: Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice
Citations: not cited yet (Europe PMC); 63 references in the paper

Abstract

Abstract: A combined behavioral and EEG experiment examined the effects of intramodal and crossmodal cueing on auditory spatial discrimination. On each trial, the participant fixated a neutral location and was presented with an auditory target (two broadband “buzzes” with a slight relative spatial offset) from one of two locations (central or lateral). The target was preceded by a cue varying in its validity (presented from the same or a different location than the target with a 50% probability) and modality (auditory or visual, in separate blocks). The participant’s task was to indicate the direction of the target shift, irrespective of the noninformative cue. Behavioral results showed that valid auditory cues improved discrimination sensitivity relative to invalid cues, while visual cue validity had no effect. Moreover, discrimination responses were biased away from the gaze direction for both cue modalities, with an additional bias away from the invalid auditory cues. EEG analysis identified neural correlates of the behavioral effects; specifically, both cue validity and modality modulated target-elicited auditory N1 and N2 components, while the more posteriorly distributed P3 correlated weakly with response biases. Finally, an auditory cue-evoked posterior contralateral positivity (ACOP) was consistent with a visual (eye-centered) rather than an auditory (head-centered) reference frame, suggesting that auditory signals are converted into a visual representation prior to directing bottom-up attention.

Open practices statement: The data supporting the findings of this study are openly available on Zenodo [10.5281/zenodo.17035882]. The repository includes trial-level behavioral data and raw EEG data associated with the present studies. The studies reported in this manuscript were not preregistered.

Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.3758/s13414-026-03305-9.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Code

The paper says that its authors' code is available on request: it was not published with the paper, so there is nothing to verify.

Code availability

The experiment and analysis code will be made available upon reasonable request. The experiment was not preregistered.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Tracing map

A tracing map links a paper to the code its authors published: this paper has none (its code is available on request), so it has no map.

Data

Datasets cited

Availability of data and materials

The data supporting the findings of this study are openly available on Zenodo [10.5281/zenodo.17035882]. The repository includes both trial-level behavioral data and raw EEG data associated with the present studies. The studies reported in this manuscript were not preregistered.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Open practices statement

The data supporting the findings of this study are openly available on Zenodo [10.5281/zenodo.17035882]. The repository includes trial-level behavioral data and raw EEG data associated with the present studies. The studies reported in this manuscript were not preregistered.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Versions

The history of this record: each version stored by the harvester or made by a correction of its authors or of the maintainers of its code, and what changed in its facts. The texts of the paper (its abstract, its availability statements) are not part of it; versions that changed only those are not listed.

Version 2, 28 September 2026

  • Publisher: n/a → Springer Science+Business Media

Version 1, 27 September 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 5 authors, 4 keywords, 13 MeSH terms, 1 funder, 57 references.

Cite

This paper

Šebeňa, R., Ahveninen, J., Best, V., Shinn-Cunningham, B., & Kopčo, N. (2026). Modality-dependent bottom-up attention and eye gaze direction affect auditory spatial discrimination. Attention, perception & psychophysics, 88(6), 158. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-026-03305-9

BibTeX

@article{sebena2026modality,
author = {Šebeňa, René and Ahveninen, Jyrki and Best, Virginia and Shinn-Cunningham, Barbara and Kopčo, Norbert},
title = {{Modality-dependent bottom-up attention and eye gaze direction affect auditory spatial discrimination}},
journal = {Attention, perception \& psychophysics},
year = {2026},
month = jul,
volume = {88},
number = {6},
pages = {158},
publisher = {Springer Science+Business Media},
issn = {1943-3921},
doi = {10.3758/s13414-026-03305-9},
url = {https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-026-03305-9},
pmid = {42426421},
pmcid = {PMC13350116}
}

RIS

TY - JOUR
AU - Šebeňa, René
AU - Ahveninen, Jyrki
AU - Best, Virginia
AU - Shinn-Cunningham, Barbara
AU - Kopčo, Norbert
TI - Modality-dependent bottom-up attention and eye gaze direction affect auditory spatial discrimination
T2 - Attention, perception & psychophysics
J2 - Atten Percept Psychophys
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/07/09
VL - 88
IS - 6
SP - 158
SN - 1943-3921
PB - Springer Science+Business Media
DO - 10.3758/s13414-026-03305-9
UR - https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-026-03305-9
LA - en
ER -

CSL-JSON

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