Task-relevant spatialized auditory cues enhance attention orientation and peripheral target detection in natural scenes

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Abstract
Concurrent auditory stimuli have been shown to enhance detection of abstract visual targets in experimental setups with little ecological validity. We presented 11 participants, wearing an eye-tracking device, with a visual detection task in an immersive audiovisual environment replicating a real-world environment. The participants were to fixate on a visual target and to press a key when they were confident of having detected the target. The visual world was accompanied by a task-relevant or task-irrelevant spatialized sound scene with different onset asynchronies. Our findings indicate task-relevant auditory cues to aid in orienting to and detecting a peripheral but not central visual target. The enhancement is amplified with an increasing amount of audio lead.