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Audiovisual Simultaneity Judgment Training Improves Cortical Efficiency

Poster Session C - Sunday, March 8, 2026, 5:00 – 7:00 pm PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Andrew Kim¹ (), Ansley Kunnath^2,3, Nabin Koirala⁴, Mark Wallace^1,3, Rene Gifford⁵; ¹Vanderbilt University, ²Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, ³Vanderbilt Brain Institute, ⁴Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine, ⁵Hearts for Hearing

As speech comprehension is multisensory, we hypothesized that improvements in audiovisual integration would increase word recognition and functional connectivity between auditory, visual, and audiovisual brain regions. To improve audiovisual integration, we utilized simultaneity judgment training, which presents audio and visual stimuli at different temporal offsets and asks participants for their perceived synchrony/asynchrony. Participants are provided trial-by-trial feedback on the correctness of their judgments. Three groups were tested: normal hearing participants without feedback, normal hearing participants with feedback, and cochlear implant users with feedback. To evaluate training effects, we investigated word recognition scores across auditory-only, visual-only, and audiovisual conditions and utilized functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to evaluate changes in cortical activity and functional connectivity. Results indicated significant group level decreases in reaction times and temporal binding window (TBW) width for the experimental groups. While word recognition scores did not show group level changes, at the individual subject level, relative decreases in temporal binding window width were associated with increases in auditory word recognition scores. Changes in auditory word recognition scores were found to be significantly correlated with brain regions including the left angular and left superior temporal gyrus. Contrary to our hypothesis, functional connectivity between auditory and multisensory regions, such as the superior temporal gyrus, showed significant decreases in connectivity in normal hearing trained participants. Overall, multisensory training exhibits promise to improve word recognition for cochlear implant users due to changes in functional connectivity, improved word recognition scores, and decreased reaction times and TBW, perhaps suggesting an increase in cortical efficiency.

Topic Area: ATTENTION: Multisensory