ePoster

Eye movement-related eardrum oscillations are induced by both visual- and auditory-guided saccades

Nancy Sotero Silva, Felix Bröhl, Christoph Kayser
FENS Forum 2024(2024)
Messe Wien Exhibition & Congress Center, Vienna, Austria

Conference

FENS Forum 2024

Messe Wien Exhibition & Congress Center, Vienna, Austria

Resources

Authors & Affiliations

Nancy Sotero Silva, Felix Bröhl, Christoph Kayser

Abstract

Hearing and vision collectively provide the spatial information on which we rely for interacting with our environment, and presumably interact already at early stages of the sensory pathways. It has recently been shown that saccadic eye movements towards visual targets induce low-frequent displacements of the tympanic membrane, termed Eye movement-related eardrum oscillations (EMREOs). These EMREOs carry parametric information about the direction and amplitude of these saccades, and may shape how sounds are transduced in the ear. Here we asked whether EMREOs emerge similarly regardless of the sensory modality guiding the saccade. To compare the presence and characteristics of EMREOs induced by saccades towards both visual and auditory targets, we presented both types of stimuli over a range of positions from -9° to 9° along the horizontal axis. EMREOs were recorded using in-ear microphones while eye movements were registered through infrared eye tracking. We find that the shape, timing and amplitude of EMREOs are determined by the amplitude and direction of the saccade, but are independent of the modality guiding them. This suggests that EMREOs are not driven by sensory information but likely by motor planning or execution in an amodal manner. Furthermore, we show that the emergence of an EMREO is not inhibited by an acoustic stimulus shortly preceding the eye movement.Image - Average EMREOs for 24 subjects in visual (above) and auditory (below) guided saccades.

Unique ID: fens-24/movement-related-eardrum-oscillations-0942059b