THE EFFECTS OF EYEBLINKS ON AUDITORY PROCESSING

Abstract

The fact that we rarely notice the brief occlusions of vision caused by eyeblinks has been linked to an active suppression of visual processing in primary visual cortex. The present study sought to determine whether this suppression is a unimodal or cross-modal phenomenon. To this end, participants completed an active auditory deviant detection task using simple tones. Deviants were slightly louder as compared to standards. For data analysis purposes, trials were classified into blink and no-blink trials depending on whether a blink occurred within 150ms before or after sound onset. Participants were less likely to detect auditory deviants on blink as compared to no-blink trials. Moreover, on blink trials, participants were less likely to detect an auditory deviant the closer their blink's apex was to sound onset. In the event-related potential (ERP), eyeblinks were associated with a decreased central-posterior N100 amplitude for both detected and missed deviants and an increased anterior N100 and P300 amplitude for detected deviants only. Together, these results suggest that eyeblinks cause cross-modal perceptual suppression and point to a compensatory amplification mechanism that may operate before and/or after a blink's maximum.