Multisensory Integration in Memory: Does Audiovisual Alignment Facilitate Memory Retrieval?

Multisensory integration is often assumed to enhance memory performance by strengthening the encoding of information presented across multiple sensory modalities. The present study investigated whether audiovisual congruency during encoding improves recognition memory by directly comparing congruent audiovisual, incongruent audiovisual, and unimodal visual encoding conditions. Recognition memory and confidence ratings were subsequently assessed using an old/new recognition task in which participants were instructed to distinguish previously encountered stimuli from novel, distractor items. Importantly, participants were informed that some of the videos had been studied with sound, but that the test stimuli would be presented in a unimodal, visual-only format. Contrary to the hypothesis derived from multisensory integration theory, recognition memory and confidence ratings did not differ significantly across congruent audiovisual, incongruent audiovisual, and unimodal conditions. These findings indicate that integration of multiple sensory modalities alone does not necessarily enhance memory representations. Overall, the findings of the current study suggest that multisensory integration does not enhance recognition memory. Instead, the results suggest that future research should emphasize the importance of overlap between encoding and recognition conditions and use more complex, real-life, representative stimuli when investigating the effects of multisensory integration.