Our recent work on the inhibition of eye movements by auditory distraction has just been accepted for publication in Psychophysiology.
Part of our results. Aggregate sound novelty distraction effect on the Sacadic Reaction Time (SRT) in anti- and pro-saccade conditions. Relative to a control, standard, condition, the unexpected sounds significantly delay saccades in both tasks but more so in the anti-saccade task. (Figure by Martin Vasilev)
Abstract: Unexpected sounds have been shown to trigger a global and transient inhibition of motor responses. Recent evidence suggests that the movement of the eyes may also be inhibited in a similar way, but it is not clear how quickly unexpected sounds can affect eye-movement responses. Additionally, little is known about whether they affect only voluntary saccades or also reflexive saccades. In this study, participants performed a pro-saccade and an anti-saccade task while the timing of sounds relative to stimulus onset was manipulated. Pro-saccades are generally reflexive and stimulus-driven, whereas anti-saccades require the generation of a voluntary saccade in the opposite direction of a peripheral stimulus. Unexpected novel sounds inhibited the execution of both pro- and anti-saccades compared to standard sounds, but the inhibition was stronger for anti-saccades. The timeline of the novelty distraction effect was relatively stable– it was observed from 150 ms before target onset to 25ms after target onset. Interestingly, unexpected sounds also reduced anti-saccade task errors, indicating that they aided inhibitory control. Overall, these results suggest that unexpected sounds yield a global and rapid inhibition of eye-movement responses. This inhibition also helps suppress reflexive eye-movement responses in favour of more voluntarily-generated ones.
Reference: Vasilev, M. R., Ozkan, Z. G., Kirkby, J. A., Nuthmann, A., & Parmentier, F. B. R. (in press). Unexpected sounds induce a rapid inhibition of eye-movement responses. Psychophysiology.
This study is part of the ongoing collaboration between Fabrice Parmentier, Martin Vasilev (UCL, UK) and Julie Kirkby (University of Bournemouth, UK) and is supported by Project PID2020-114117GB-I00 funded by MICIU/AEI /10.13039/501100011033.
