Switching attention between modalities: further evidence for visual dominance.
The present study examined cross-modal selective attention using a task-switching paradigm. In a series of experiments, we presented lateralized visual and auditory stimuli simultaneously and asked participants to make a spatial decision according to either the visual or the auditory stimulus. We observed consistent cross-modal interference in the form of a spatial congruence effect. This effect was asymmetrical, with higher costs when responding to auditory than to visual stimuli. Furthermore, we found stimulus-modality-shift costs, indicating a persisting attentional bias towards the attended stimulus modality. We discuss our findings with respect to visual dominance, directed-attention accounts, and the modality-appropriateness hypothesis.
Lukas
Sarah
S
Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Jägerstrasse 17-19, 52066 Aachen, Germany. lukas@psych.rwth-aachen.de
Philipp
Andrea M
AM
Koch
Iring
I
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006309:Hearing / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014785:Vision, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology