Interaction Between Auditory and Visual Discriminations Attempted Simultaneously

Abstract

<p> The study contains two discriminatory tasks which are attempted separately and simultaneoulsly. The subject is asked to judge the relative positions of successively presented points of light and/or to decide whether a test tone is added to continuous white noise during the interval between the two lights. It is noted that this design is similar to a retroactive interference paradigm. Analysis of the data shows that there is little interaction between decisions to each of the psychophysical tasks when they are attempted simultaneously. There also appears to be no significant change in sensitivity whether the tasks are attempted alone or together. It is suggested that-further experiments, involving different forms of visual memory, are needed.</p>