Temporal gap between visual and auditory stimuli lessen audiovisual integration in aging under cross-modal attention

Studies both on animal and human suggest temporal principle govern audiovisual integration greatly. However, its effect on audiovisual integration of elderly adults remains ambiguous. In this study, unimodal auditory (A), unimodal visual (V) or audiovisual (AV) stimulus with various temporal gap ( 0, 100 or -100 ms) were presented randomly on the left or right hemispace when the subjects attended to both auditory and visual stimuli and were instructed to respond to target stimuli rapidly and accurately. Race modal and SPSS software were used to analyze the data. Our results demonstrated that enhanced audiovisual integration was greatest when auditory and visual stimuli presented simultaneously (P<;0.05); however, when it enlarge to 100 ms, significant enhancement disappeared. Our results confirmed that temporal gaps between visual and auditory stimuli could influence audiovisual interaction in elderly adults under cross-modal attention.