Investigating Deviance Distraction and the Impact of the Modality of the To-Be-Ignored Stimuli

It has been suggested that deviance distraction is caused by unexpected sensory events in the to-be-ignored stimuli violating the cognitive system's predictions of incoming stimuli. The majority of research has used methods where the to-be-ignored expected (standards) and the unexpected (deviants) stimuli are presented within the same modality. Less is known about the behavioral impact of deviance distraction when the to-be-ignored stimuli are presented in different modalities (e.g., standard and deviants presented in different modalities). In three experiments using cross-modal oddball tasks with mixed-modality to-be-ignored stimuli, we examined the distractive role of unexpected auditory deviants presented in a continuous stream of expected standard vibrations. The results showed that deviance distraction seems to be dependent upon the to-be-ignored stimuli being presented within the same modality, and that the simplest omission of something expected; in this case, a standard vibration may be enough to capture attention and distract performance.