Nienke van Atteveldt|Elia Formisano|Rainer Goebel|Leo Blomert
Top–down task effects overrule automatic multisensory responses to letter–sound pairs in auditory association cortex
Maastricht University|Maastricht University|Maastricht University|Maastricht University
alphabetic scripts letters speech sounds basic elements correspondence spoken written language two previous fmri studies showed response speech sounds auditory association cortex enhanced congruent letters suppressed incongruent letters interestingly temporal synchrony critical congruency effect occur interpreted results neural correlate lettersound integration driven learned congruency lettersound pairs present eventrelated fmri study designed address two questions could directly addressed previous studies due passive nature blocked design specifically 1 examine whether enhancementsuppression auditory cortex truly multisensory integration effects explained different attention levels congruentincongruent blocks 2 examine effect topdown task demands neural integration lettersound pairs firstly replicated previous results random stimulus presentation rules explanation congruency effect auditory cortex solely terms attention secondly showed effects congruency temporal asynchrony auditory association cortex absent active matching indicates multisensory responses auditory association cortex heavily depend task demands without task instructions auditory cortex modulated favor processing congruent synchronous information modulation overruled explicit matching audiovisual stimuli equally relevant independent congruency temporal relation