Auditory distractor processing under concurrent visual cueing: ERP correlates of cross-modal distractor-induced deafness

Distractor-induced deafness (DID) refers to the impaired detection of an auditory target when it is preceded by acoustically similar, task-irrelevant distractors, despite being signaled by an auditory cue. Here, we test whether distractor processing generalizes across cue modalities using a cross-modal DID paradigm in which a visual cue signals the onset of an auditory target following varying numbers of auditory distractors. Target detection declines linearly with increasing distractor number at a cue-target stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA) of 0 ms, but remains largely preserved at 300 ms, reproducing the behavioral DID signature. Electrophysiologically, distractors elicit a fronto-central negativity comparable to that reported in unimodal DID; under cross-modal cueing in the present experiment, however, its amplitude remains insensitive to increasing distractor load. By contrast, amplitudes in the subsequent P3 range show the expected linear decrease with increasing distractor number. Together, these findings indicate that multiple auditory distractors impair target detection irrespective of cue modality, whereas their ERP correlates appear to differ. Although the underlying neurocognitive mechanism cannot be conclusively determined from the present data alone, our findings are consistent with the possibility that cue modality influences auditory distractor processing.