Effect of music training and art training on letters-speech sounds audiovisual integration in college students

Objective To investigate the effects of music training and art training on the audiovisual integration of letters-speech sounds in college students. Method Visual letters and auditory speech sounds were used to conduct a discrimination task test in music students, art students and ordinary college students (n=30 for each group). SPSS17.0 was used to conduct ANOVA and Race model analysis on reaction time and hit rate. Results (1) Reaction time: the results showed that the interaction between group and stimulus type was significant(F=7.89, P<0.01). The simple effect analysis found that all the participants reacted faster to consistent audiovisual(letters B and speech B) stimuli in comparison to unimodal stimuli, and the redundant signal effect occured.(2) Race model analysis showed that the time window of audiovisual integration were 120-130 ms in the music group, 130-190 ms in the art group, and 120-170 ms in the general group(P<0.01). The positive area (pAUC) under the Race model curve of the music group(18.95) was significantly smaller than that of the art group(159.43) and the general group(125.01)(P<0.01), and there was no significant difference between the art group and the general group(P=0.13). Conclusion Music training has a regulating effect on the integration of letters and speech sounds, while art training has no significant effect on it. Key words: Audiovisual integration; The redundant signal effect; Race model; Music training; Art training