Intersensory facilitation of reaction time

Reaction time as a measure of intersensory facilitation.

In measuring reaction time (RT) to simultaneously presented stimuli, Todd (1912) found facilitation when sound and electric shock were paired but no effect when light was paired with either sound or shock. These results may be understood using the scheme suggested by Hilgard (1933) to account for facilitation of the eyeblink reflex. Hilgard used light and sound stimuli slightly offset in time a...

The locus of intersensory facilitation of reaction time.

When an imperative visual stimulus is paired with an auditory (accessory) stimulus, RT is generally faster than with the imperative stimulus alone. Three experiments using additive-factors logic tested an energy-summation view of the accessory, where effects are due to increased rate of information build-up in sensory stages, and a preparation-enhancement view which holds that the accessory ser...

Simple reaction time and statistical facilitation: a parallel grains model.

A race-like model is developed to account for various phenomena arising in simple reaction time (RT) tasks. Within the model, each stimulus is represented by a number of grains of information or activation processed in parallel. The stimulus is detected when a criterion number of activated grains reaches a decision center. Using the concept of statistical facilitation, the model accounts for ma...

The development of face perception in infancy: intersensory interference and unimodal visual facilitation.

Although research has demonstrated impressive face perception skills of young infants, little attention has focused on conditions that enhance versus impair infant face perception. The present studies tested the prediction, generated from the intersensory redundancy hypothesis (IRH), that face discrimination, which relies on detection of visual featural information, would be impaired in the con...

Developmental Psychology The Development of Face Perception in Infancy: Intersensory Interference and Unimodal Visual Facilitation