title: The role of crossmodal competition and dimensional overlap in crossmodal attention switching.
abstract: Crossmodal selective attention was investigated in a cued task switching paradigm using bimodal visual and auditory stimulation. A cue indicated the imperative modality. Three levels of spatial S-R associations were established following perceptual (location), structural (numerical), and conceptual (verbal) set-level compatibility. In Experiment 1, participants switched attention between the auditory and visual modality either with a spatial-location or spatial-numerical stimulus set. In the spatial-location set, participants performed a localization judgment on left vs. right presented stimuli, whereas the spatial-numerical set required a magnitude judgment about a visually or auditorily presented number word. Single-modality blocks with unimodal stimuli were included as a control condition. In Experiment 2, the spatial-numerical stimulus set was replaced by a spatial-verbal stimulus set using direction words (e.g., "left"). RT data showed modality switch costs, which were asymmetric across modalities in the spatial-numerical and spatial-verbal stimulus set (i.e., larger for auditory than for visual stimuli), and congruency effects, which were asymmetric primarily in the spatial-location stimulus set (i.e., larger for auditory than for visual stimuli). This pattern of effects suggests task-dependent visual dominance.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany. Electronic address: kreutzfeldt@psych.rwth-aachen.de.
authors.forename: Magali
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kreutzfeldt
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Denise N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Stephan
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology-Section Neuropsychology, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Walter
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Sturm
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology-Section Neuropsychology, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Willmes
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Iring
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Koch
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Congruency effect; Crossmodal selective attention; Dimensional overlap; Modality switch costs; Visual dominance