Temporal factors and the sharing of cross-modal information
Poster

Andrew Woods
Psychology, Trinity College Dublin

Sile O'Modhrain
Media Lab; Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Fiona Newell
Psychology, Trinity College Dublin

     Abstract ID Number: 73
     Full text: Not available
     Last modified: May 20, 2003

Abstract
This paper hopes to further our understanding of cross-modal processing of simple stimuli. Cross-modal matching tasks were conducted where the two objects to be matched were presented to vision and touch at different times. The stimuli used were ‘L-shaped’ objects with varying lengths in the X and Y dimensions. Participants were shown a visual and a haptic object and were asked whether they were the ‘same’ or ‘different’. In experiment one, the objects were presented in a serial order, with an inter-stimulus interval (ISI) of either 0, 15 or 30 seconds. Visual-haptic and haptic-visual temporal decay of sensitivity to object change was found to be the same and a two-dimensional change was easier to detect than one-dimensional changes. Experiment two found no performance difference between synchronous and immediate serial object presentation. Thus, a temporal window of optimum performance may exist with presentation outside of this subject to memorial decay.