Auditory and cross-modal attentional bias toward positive natural sounds: Behavioral and ERP evidence

Abstract

Recently, researchers have expanded the investigation into attentional biases toward positive stimuli; however, few studies have examined attentional biases toward positive auditory information. In three experiments, the present study employed an emotional spatial cueing task using emotional sounds as cues and auditory stimuli (Experiment 1) or visual stimuli (Experiment 2 and Experiment 3) as targets to explore whether auditory or visual spatial attention could be modulated by positive auditory cues. Experiment 3 also examined the temporal dynamics of cross-modal auditory bias toward positive natural sounds using event-related potentials (ERPs). The behavioral results of the three experiments consistently demonstrated that response times to targets were faster after positive auditory cues than they were after neutral auditory cues in the valid condition, indicating that healthy participants showed a selective auditory attentional bias (Experiment 1) and cross-modal attentional bias (Experiment 2 and Experiment 3) toward positive natural sounds. The results of Experiment 3 showed that N1 amplitudes were more negative after positive sounds than they were after neutral sounds, which further provided electrophysiological evidence that positive auditory information enhances attention at early stages in healthy adults. The results of the experiments performed in the present study suggest that humans exhibit an attentional bias toward positive natural sounds.

Keywords: attention enhancement; attentional bias; emotional cueing task; event-related potentials; positive natural sounds.

FIGURE 1

(A) Typical sequence of Experiment 1. Shown in the figure is an example of a valid trail. Emotional cues (positive, negative, or neutral) were presented equally often to the right or left ear and were followed by the target on the same (valid, 50%) or opposite side of space where the cue was presented (invalid, 50%). (B) Behavioral results from Experiment 1. Average reaction times for the six experimental conditions. Error bars indicate standard error (SE) of the mean. *p < 0.05; ***p < 0.001.

FIGURE 2

(A) Typical sequence of Experiment 2. Shown in the figure is an example of a valid trail. (B) Behavioral results from Experiment 2. Average reaction times to visual targets for the six experimental conditions. Error bars indicate standard error (SE) of the mean. **p < 0.01.

FIGURE 3

Behavioral results for Experiment 3. Average reaction times to visual targets for positive and neutral auditory cues. Error bars indicate standard error (SE) of the mean. ***p < 0.001.

FIGURE 4

(A) ERPs recorded to the different emotional auditory cues (neutral = blue line and positive = red line) averaged across all participants. (B) Topographic maps for the different auditory cues at the mean peak of the N1 component (130–165 ms after the onset of auditory cues).

FIGURE 5

ERPs time-locked to visual target presentation for valid trials. (A) Grand average waveforms of P300 to valid targets at five sites (CPz, CP1, CP2, CP3, and CP4) for positive auditory cues and neutral auditory cues (positive valid = red line and neutral valid = blue line). (B) Topographic maps to visual targets presentation (240–320 ms after the onset of visual targets).