The effects of synchronous and asynchronous steady-state auditory-visual motion on EEG characteristics in healthy young adults

The brain’s integration of motion information from visual and auditory senses is essential for human to be able to duly respond to the dynamic living environment. Research on the impact of steady-state auditory motion and steady-state visual motion synchronous stimuli and minor asynchronous stimuli on electroencephalogram (EEG) is lacking. This study designed steady-state visual motion paradigms, steady-state auditory motion paradigms, steady-state auditory-visual synchronous motion paradigms, and steady-state auditory-visual asynchronous motion paradigms. Then the effects of steady-state auditory-visual motion stimuli on EEG were analyzed from the aspects of time domain, frequency domain, connectivity, and source localization. Our study showed that the synchronous steady-state auditory-visual motion stimuli and the asynchronous steady-state auditory-visual motion stimuli can enhance brain responses in a subadditive mode and significantly activated auditory and visual integration areas compared to single-modal visual and auditory stimuli. Moreover, asynchronous steady-state auditory-visual motion stimuli activated the Anterior Cingulate (ACG) compared to synchronous steady-state auditory-visual motion stimuli. Our study demonstrated that ACG regions were involved in conflicting processing of steady-state auditory-visual motion information. This study further enriches the cutting edge of auditory-visual motion integration.