The Effect of Auditory Entrainment on the Allocation of Visual Attention

Auditory and visual attention to rhythmic environmental stimuli can be thought of as involving periods of maximal and minimal attention such that the distribution of attention is entrained to the rhythm of the environmental input. We examined how entraining auditory attention to a rhythm affects the allocation of visual attention. In Experiments 1 and 2, subjects moved their eyes to a dot whose onset was either in synch or out of synch with an entrained auditory rhythm. Saccade latency was fastest for the in-synch condition, indicating that entraining auditory attention similarly entrains visual attention such that both are maximized concurrently. Experiment 3 tested the effect of auditory entrainment on visual attention in a temporally independent manner by having subjects perform a gap judgment task. Judgments were most accurate when the onset of the square was in-synch with the preceding auditory rhythm, replicating the effect observed in Experiments 1 and 2.