Saccadic reaction times to audiovisual stimuli show effects of oscillatory phase reset
Open accessAbstract
Initiating an eye movement towards a suddenly appearing visual target is faster when an accessory auditory stimulus occurs in close spatiotemporal vicinity. Such facilitation of saccadic reaction time (SRT) is well-documented, but the exact neural mechanisms underlying the crossmodal effect remain to be elucidated. From EEG/MEG studies it has been hypothesized that coupled oscillatory activity in primary sensory cortices regulates multisensory processing. Specifically, it is assumed that the phase of an ongoing neural oscillation is shifted due to the occurrence of a sensory stimulus so that, across trials, phase values become highly consistent (phase reset). If one can identify the phase an oscillation is reset to, it is possible to predict when temporal windows of high and low excitability will occur. However, in behavioral experiments the pre-stimulus phase will be different on successive repetitions of the experimental trial, and average performance over many trials will show no signs of the modulation. Here we circumvent this problem by repeatedly presenting an auditory accessory stimulus followed by a visual target stimulus with a temporal delay varied in steps of 2 ms. Performing a discrete time series analysis on SRT as a function of the delay, we provide statistical evidence for the existence of distinct peak spectral components in the power spectrum. These frequencies, although varying across participants, fall within the beta and gamma range (20 to 40 Hz) of neural oscillatory activity observed in neurophysiological studies of multisensory integration. Some evidence for high-theta/alpha activity was found as well. Our results are consistent with the phase reset hypothesis and demonstrate that it is amenable to testing by purely psychophysical methods. Thus, any theory of multisensory processes that connects specific brain states with patterns of saccadic responses should be able to account for traces of oscillatory activity in observable behavior.
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Phase reset and synchronization of ongoing oscillatory activity may be impacted in autism spectrum disorder.
“One hypothesized mechanism for this information transfer across broad regions is the phase reset and synchronization of ongoing oscillatory activity (Diederich et al., 2012; Fries, 2005; Lakatos et al., 2007; Mercier et al., 2013; Varela et al., 2001), which may be impacted in ASD (Buard et al., 2013; Khan et al., 2013; Milne et al., 2009).”
From Behavioral, Perceptual, and Neural Alterations in Sensory and Multisensory Function in Autism Spectrum Disorder (2015) · cites this paper as Diederich et al., 2012
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- Authors
- Diederich, A., Schomburg, A., & Colonius, H.
- Affiliations
- Constructor University (DE)
- Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Diederich, Adele
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2012-10-03
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- e44910
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3463580
- OpenAlex
- W2058048080
- Cited by
- 27
- References
- 45
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 4
- FWCI
- 4.29
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Multisensory perception and integration
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Keywords
- saccade latency, audiovisual stimuli, phase reset, neural oscillations, multisensory integration, beta oscillations, gamma oscillations, time delay, power spectrum analysis
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Algorithms, Audiovisual Aids, Brain Mapping, Electroencephalography, Female, Humans, Male, Models, Neurological, Photic Stimulation, Psychomotor Performance, Reaction Time, Saccades, Somatosensory Cortex, Visual Perception, Magnetoencephalography, Young Adult
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