title: Suggestion overrides automatic audiovisual integration.
abstract: Cognitive scientists routinely distinguish between controlled and automatic mental processes. Through learning, practice, and exposure, controlled processes can become automatic; however, whether automatic processes can become deautomatized - recuperated under the purview of control - remains unclear. Here we show that a suggestion derails a deeply ingrained process involving involuntary audiovisual integration. We compared the performance of highly versus less hypnotically suggestible individuals (HSIs versus LSIs) in a classic McGurk paradigm - a perceptual illusion task demonstrating the influence of visual facial movements on auditory speech percepts. Following a posthypnotic suggestion to prioritize auditory input, HSIs but not LSIs manifested fewer illusory auditory perceptions and correctly identified more auditory percepts. Our findings demonstrate that a suggestion deautomatized a ballistic audiovisual process in HSIs. In addition to guiding our knowledge regarding theories and mechanisms of automaticity, the present findings pave the road to a more scientific understanding of top-down effects and multisensory integration.
authors.affiliation: McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada.
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Déry
authors.affiliation: McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada.
authors.forename: Natasha K J
authors.initials: NK
authors.lastname: Campbell
authors.affiliation: McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lifshitz
authors.affiliation: McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada; Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, Québec, Canada. Electronic address: amir.raz@mcgill.ca.
authors.forename: Amir
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Raz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007088:Illusions / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D011897:Random Allocation; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013404:Suggestion; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Attention; Deautomatization; Hypnosis; McGurk effect; Stroop effect; Suggestion