A study on human audiovisual integration by behavioural and event-related potentials (ERPs) measurements for traffic safety

In this study, audiovisual integration for only attending visual component of bimodal audiovisual stimulus was investigated in humans using behavioral and electrophysiological measures. The aim was to explore human´s information integration mechanism and give theoretic basic for traffic safety. Event-related potentials (ERPs) to auditory (A), visual (V) and bimodal audiovisual (AV) stimuli were recorded. Audiovisual integration is revealed in the difference between the ERPs to the bimodal AV stimulus and the sum of the ERPs to A and V stimulus. Results show that audiovisual integration was not found during early sensory processing phase (up to 200 ms post stimulus onset). Audiovisual integration was found firstly over central scalp around 300 ms. For only attending visual component of bimodal audiovisual information, simultaneously presented visual and auditory information were processed separately in early sensory processing phase, and in late phase audiovisual information was integrated.