Date of Award
2008
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science
Program
Communication Sciences and Disorders
Supervisor
Dr. Janis Cardy
Second Advisor
Dr. Marc Joanisse
Abstract
Audiovisual integration is an important process in human perception. However, it is
unclear whether auditory and visual stimuli are integrated during primary sensory processing, or following independent processing in their respective sensory cortices. This study examined 16 adult participants’ responses to simultaneously presented congruent and incongruent visual letters and auditory letter names using electroencephalography (EEG). Auditorystimuliwerepresentedinanunattendedoddballparadigm,usingthe mismatch negativity (MMN) event-related potential (ERP) component as an indicator of primary auditory processing. Participants also identified whether or not visual letters were vowels using a key press. No difference was found in the MMN across congruent and incongruent triais. However, differences in the P300 ∞mponent were observed. Behavioural data revealed that only deviant task-irrelevant congruent auditory stimuli
facilitated responses, possibly due to an involuntary attention shift toward deviant stimuli. ERP data suggested that audio visual integration of letters occurs following primary sensory processing.
Recommended Citation
Andres, Allison J.D., "Examining audiovisual integration of visually presented letters and their auditory letter names using electroencephalography (EEG)" (2008). Digitized Theses. 4768.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/digitizedtheses/4768