ERP effects of intermodal attention and cross-modal links in spatial attention

Abstract

Effects of intermodal attention and of cross-modal links in spatial attention on visual and auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) were investigated in two experiments where participants had to attend to one stimulus modality (audition or vision) to respond to infrequently presented targets whenever these were presented at a relevant location (indicated by a cue). The ERP effects of intermodal attention (measured by comparing the ERPs elicited by visual and auditory stimuli when the respective modality was relevant or irrelevant) were differently distributed in vision and audition, suggesting that intermodal attention operates by a selective modulation of modality-specific areas. Similar ERP effects of spatial attention (measured by comparing the ERPs to stimuli at cued and uncued locations) were elicited at midline electrodes in vision and audition. With one notable exception, these effects were also present when attention was directed within the other modality, suggesting the existence of cross-modal links between vision and audition in the control of transient spatial attention.