Time-Window-of-Integration (TWIN) Model for Saccadic Reaction Time: Effect of Auditory Masker Level on Visual-Auditory Spatial Interaction in Elevation

Saccadic reaction time (SRT) to a visual target tends to be shorter when auditory stimuli are presented in close temporal and spatial proximity, even when subjects are instructed to ignore the auditory non-target (focused attention paradigm). Previous studies using pairs of visual and auditory stimuli differing in both azimuth and vertical position suggest that the amount of SRT facilitation decreases not with the physical but with the perceivable distance between visual target and auditory non-target. Steenken et al. (Brain Res 1220:150-156, 2008) presented an additional white-noise masker background of three seconds duration. Increasing the masker level had a diametrical effect on SRTs in spatially coincident versus disparate stimulus configurations: saccadic responses to coincident visual-auditory stimuli are slowed down, whereas saccadic responses to disparate stimuli are speeded up. Here we show that the time-window-of-integration model accounts for this observation by variation of a perceivable-distance parameter in the second stage of the model whose value does not depend on stimulus onset asynchrony between target and non-target.