Previous cueing studies show that a sound coming from a particular location in space can capture auditory and visual attention [1, 2]. In other words, when hearing a sound we have the tendency to direct our attention to the location of the auditory event. This allows for more accurate and quicker responses to succeeding auditory or visual events occurring at that same location [3]. Bottom-up or exogenous capture of attention can occur in a covert [4] manner so this can occur without eye movements. This exogenous capture of covert attention is most often studied by means of a cueing task in which a localizable onset is presented at a valid or invalid target location prior to the presentation of the target. People respond faster and more accurately to validly cued targets than to invalidly cued targets. Importantly, this cueing effect occurs when the cue is valid at chance level, which indicates that it is an automatic process [e.g. S, 6].
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