Modality-specificity of Selective Attention Networks

Stewart, Hannah J.; Amitay, Sygal · 2015 · Crossref

DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01826

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Summary

This study investigates whether selective attention networks are modality-specific (distinct for auditory and visual inputs) or supramodal (shared across senses). Guided by the Attention Network framework, which divides attention into alerting, orienting, and executive control (conflict resolution), the authors sought to determine if these functions operate independently for each sensory modality or as unified systems. While previous research suggested alerting and executive control are supramodal, the modality specificity of orienting remained debated. To address this, forty-eight young adults with normal hearing completed a battery of four standardized attention tests: the visual Attention Network Test (vANT), the auditory Attention Network Test (aANT), the Test of Everyday Attention (TEA), and the Test of Attention in Listening (TAiL). These tests provided independent measures of alerting, orienting, and conflict resolution for both auditory and visual domains. The researchers subjected the resulting performance metrics to an exploratory factor analysis to identify underlying attention constructs. This statistical approach allowed them to assess whether measures from different modalities clustered together (indicating supramodality) or separated by modality (indicating specificity). The analysis yielded a four-component solution explaining 67.6% of the variance. The first component, labeled “general attention,” comprised measures from the TEA. The third component was identified as “auditory attention,” containing only measures from the TAiL where participants attended to pitch (a non-spatial feature). Crucially, the second and fourth components were labeled “spatial orienting” and “spatial conflict,” respectively. These factors combined orienting and conflict resolution measures from both visual and auditory tasks that relied on spatial judgments, such as determining the direction of an arrow or the location of a sound. Notably, alerting measures were excluded from the final factor analysis because significant alerting effects were observed only in the visual test, preventing a cross-modal comparison. The findings challenge the hypothesis that attention networks are strictly modality-specific or uniformly supramodal. Instead, the results suggest that attentional control is organized by the type of stimulus feature rather than the sensory modality. Spatial attention, involving orienting and conflict resolution regarding location, appears to be supramodal, as auditory and visual spatial tasks loaded onto the same factors. Conversely, non-spatial auditory attention (pitch) emerged as a distinct, modality-specific component. The authors attribute the lack of a corresponding visual-specific component to the absence of non-spatial visual tasks in their battery. These results align with the dual-pathway theory of perception, distinguishing between “what” (feature-based) and “where” (spatial) processing streams, and highlight the need for further research to determine if non-spatial visual attention is also modality-specific.

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Topics

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• multisensory crossmodal
• attention selective divided