ERP Evidence for Cross-Modal Effects on Attractiveness Perception.

backgroundAttractiveness plays an important role in social interactions. However, it remains unclear whether presenting attractiveness information across multiple sensory modalities facilitates attractiveness evaluation, and how cross-modal congruency modulates this process.

methodsThe present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate these questions. Participants judged the attractiveness of voices presented alone or paired with faces that were congruent or incongruent in attractiveness.

resultsSignificant differences were found between unimodal and audiovisual conditions, as well as between congruent and incongruent pairs, during both early perceptual (N1) and later evaluative (P3) stages. Both audiovisual conditions elicited larger N1 amplitudes than the auditory-only condition, and congruent pairs produced larger N1 amplitudes than incongruent pairs. At a later stage, the auditory-only condition produced larger P3 amplitudes than the audiovisual conditions. Furthermore, the interaction between voice attractiveness and visual context on P3 amplitudes was significant. Audiovisual incongruent pairs elicited larger P3 amplitudes than congruent pairs, but only when the voice was unattractive.

conclusionsThe results demonstrate that redundant visual cues of attractiveness both accelerate and alter the perception of auditory attractiveness. These audiovisual integration effects occur across different processing stages and may reflect enhanced processing efficiency in multisensory social perception.