Multimodal sensory integration: Diminishing returns in rhythmic synchronization

J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2020 Oct;46(10):1077-1087. doi: 10.1037/xhp0000833. Epub 2020 Jul 30.

Abstract

Synchronizing movements with events in the surrounding environment is a ubiquitous aspect of behavior. Experiments studying multimodal integration and rhythmic synchronization tend to focus on how bimodal (e.g., audio-visual) stimuli enhances synchronization performance (i.e., reduced variability) compared with synchronization with its unimodal constituents. As such, it is unclear whether trimodal (i.e., audio-visual-tactile) stimuli may yield additional performance benefits. To address this, we developed a multimodal sensorimotor synchronization assessment that incorporates audio, visual, and vibrotactile stimuli. Results replicate performance improvements with bimodal compared with unimodal stimuli. However, trimodal stimuli yields less, or in some cases no advantage compared with bimodal stimuli. These results demonstrate that in this case, increasing the amount of sensory information beyond bimodal stimuli yields little or no additional performance benefits. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Auditory Perception / physiology*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Music*
  • Psychomotor Performance / physiology*
  • Time Factors
  • Touch Perception / physiology*
  • Visual Perception / physiology*
  • Young Adult