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Adapting the crossmodal congruency task for measuring the limits of visual-tactile interactions within and between groups
Poole D, Couth S, Gowen E, Warren PA, Poliakoff E
Multisensory Research. 2015;.
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Abstract
The crossmodal congruency task (CCT; Spence, Pavani, & Driver, 1998) is a commonly used paradigm for measuring visual- tactile interactions and how these may be influenced by discrepancies in space and time between the tactile target and visual distractors. The majority of studies which have used this paradigm have neither measured, nor attempted to control individual variability in unisensory (tactile) performance. We have developed a version of the CCT in which unisensory baseline performance is constrained to enable comparisons within and between participant groups. Participants were instructed to discriminate between single and double tactile pulses presented to their dominant hand, at their own approximate threshold level. In Experiment 1 visual distractors were presented at -30ms, 100ms, 200ms and 400ms stimulus onset asynchronies. In Experiment 2 ipsilateral visual distractors were presented 0cm, 21cm, 42cm vertically from the target hand, and 42cm in a symmetrical, contralateral position. Distractors presented -30ms and 0cm from the target produced a significantly larger congruency effect than at other time points and spatial locations. Thus, the typical limits of visual-tactile interactions were replicated using a version of the task in which baseline performance can be constrained. The usefulness of this approach is supported by the observation that tactile thresholds correlated with self-reported autistic traits in this student sample. We discuss the suitability of this adapted version of the CCT is suitable for measuring visual-tactile interactions in populations where unisensory tactile ability may differ within and between groups.
Keyword(s)
Visual-tactile interactions; crossmodal congruency task; individual variability; multisensory processing; spatial modulation; temporal modulation