The influence of auditory pitch contour on timing manual interception of moving targets

Poster Session F - Tuesday, April 1, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Haleh Mahmoudi¹ (haleh.mahmoudi@uga.edu), Deborah A. Barany¹; ¹University of Georgia

Manual interception of a moving target requires continuous integration of spatial and temporal information across sensory modalities to determine when and where to move. While previous research has primarily focused on visual motion processing, auditory signals may also enhance interception performance. The proposed studies will leverage crossmodal correspondences - systematic associations between stimulus attributes from different modalities - to examine how audiovisual information is integrated for goal-directed action. For example, ascending (descending) pitch changes are typically linked to faster (slower) visual target speeds. Further, our preliminary findings (N = 11) indicate that participants judge pitch direction more quickly for faster tempos, especially when paired with matching visual motion directions (up/down). Building on this, we will investigate how audiovisual congruency affects interception initiation and timing. Participants will control a cursor to move toward a fixed interception zone based on visual target speed (fast/slow), with targets presented alone or paired with either a congruent (e.g., fast visual with ascending pitch) or incongruent (e.g., fast visual with descending pitch) auditory stimulus. We hypothesize that movements will be initiated earlier for faster visual targets and when paired with ascending pitch. Additionally, we predict that incongruent auditory stimuli will impair interception timing accuracy. These findings would provide initial evidence that crossmodal correspondences facilitate goal-directed actions. Future work will adapt this paradigm for fMRI, using representational similarity analysis to examine how crossmodal correspondences modulate cortical representations involved in motor planning.

Topic Area: PERCEPTION & ACTION: Motor control