Social relevance modulates multisensory integration.

When interacting with the environment, humans exhibit robust biases toward information that pertains to themselves: Self-relevant information is processed faster and yields more accurate responses than information linked to others. Recent studies have shown that simple social associations can lead to the instant deployment of this benefit in the processing of abstract stimuli. However, how self-prioritization evolves across the processing hierarchy has been a subject of intense debate. Furthermore, there is little empirical evidence about the functional efficiency of social relevance in natural environments in which information is present across multiple senses. Across three experiments (each n = 40), the present study shows that self-prioritization effects (a) can arise in simple audio-visual numerosity judgements, (b) can be efficiently deployed across the senses by funneling perception toward self-relevant information in the more reliable sensory modality, and (c) modulate the integration of auditory and visual information into a multisensory representation. Taken together, the present findings suggest that social relevance can influence multisensory processing at both perceptual and postperceptual stages via early attentional modulations of sensory integration and later, task-dependent attentional control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).