Testing the effect of stimulus onset asynchrony on auditory attention using the attention network test

The Attention Network Test (ANT) is a widely used paradigm for assessing the efficiency of attentional subsystems. Although most ANT implementations rely on visual cues and stimuli, extending the ANT to the auditory domain is important for advancing theories of modality-specific attention and for enabling assessment in populations with visual impairments.

The present study adapted an auditory version of the ANT to examine how stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) modulates alerting, orienting, and executive control attention. Participants completed a duration discrimination task in which they judged whether the first of two tones (the target) was short or long while ignoring the second tone (the flanker). Trials were preceded by one of three cues: no cue, an alerting cue (pink noise), or an orienting cue (pink noise paired with a target-matching pure tone). SOAs were either 400 ms or 900 ms.

The task elicited robust executive control effects, with slower and less accurate responses on incongruent compared to congruent trials, as well as reliable orienting effects, with faster responses following orienting versus neutral cues. In contrast, the alerting effect was not significant. However, alerting interacted with executive control: congruency effects were reduced following alerting cues, a pattern opposite to that observed in the visual ANT but consistent with prior auditory work. SOA further modulated performance, with evidence that alerting cues were more effective at shorter intervals, whereas orienting cues exerted greater influence at longer intervals.

These findings support the feasibility and promise of an auditory ANT while highlighting important temporal constraints on auditory attention. Future work will be needed to refine the task to better capture the dynamic interplay among attentional networks in the auditory domain.