Lukas, S. 1, 2 , Philipp, A. M. 2 & Koch, I. 2
1 General Psychology, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany
2 Cognitive and Experimental Psychology, RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany
Often, a visual stimulus can be processed faster than an accompanying stimulus in another modality. This effect is called visual dominance. The modality appropriateness hypothesis (cf. Freides, 1974) explains this effect in stating that stimuli in different modalities are differently effective processed depending on the dimension in which they are situated. For example, perception and processing of visual stimuli work best in the dimension of space, whereas in the dimension of time auditory stimuli are favored. In earlier studies, we already showed a clear benefit for visual stimuli in a modality-switch situation. In these studies subjects were required to make a spatial decision of the stimulus in the relevant modality. We found that for visual stimuli, RT and interference effects were smaller than for auditory stimuli. In the present study, we examined the assumption that this benefit should be reduced or even reversed in a timely task. Subjects were now required to fulfill a timely task. We found indeed that RT did not differ anymore in this setting. The interference effect was even reversed. We discuss our findings with respect of the modality-appropriateness hypothesis, as well as the hypothesis of directed attention (e.g., Posner, Nissen, & Klein, 1976).