Effects of visual and auditory stimuli in a choice reaction time task.

Abstract

The effect produced by a warning stimulus(i) (WS) in reaction time (RT) tasks is commonly attributed to a facilitation of sensorimotor mechanisms by alertness. Recently, evidence was presented that this effect is also related to a proactive inhibition of motor control mechanisms. This inhibition would hinder responding to the WS instead of the target stimulus (TS). Some studies have shown that auditory WS produce a stronger facilitatory effect than visual WS. The present study investigated whether the former WS also produces a stronger inhibitory effect than the latter WS. In one session, the RTs to a visual target in two groups of volunteers were evaluated. In a second session, subjects reacted to the visual target both with (50% of the trials) and without (50% of the trials) a WS. During trials, when subjects received a WS, one group received a visual WS and the other group was presented with an auditory WS. In the first session, the mean RTs of the two groups did not differ significantly. In the second session, the mean RT of the two groups in the presence of the WS was shorter than in their absence. The mean RT in the absence of the auditory WS was significantly longer than the mean RT in the absence of the visual WS. Mean RTs did not differ significantly between the present conditions of the visual and auditory WS. The longer RTs of the auditory WS group as opposed to the visual WS group in the WS-absent trials suggest that auditory WS exert a stronger inhibitory influence on responsivity than visual WS.

Neurofeedback in Learning Disabled Children: Visual versus Auditory Reinforcement

“…Thompson et al (1992), Shenvi and Balasubramanian (1994), Pain and Hibbs (2007), Shelton and Kumar (2010), and Ng and Chan (2012) have documented that the auditory RT is faster than the visual RT; in contrast, Verleger (1997) and Yagi et al (1999) showed that the visual RT is faster than the auditory. McAuley and Henry (2010) examined modality effects in rhythm processing using a tempo judgment paradigm, finding that auditory rhythms demonstrate an advantage over visual rhythms; analogously, Bueno and Ribeiro do Valle (2012) studied the effect produced by the warning stimulus modality in a reaction time task, and they found that an auditory warning stimulus exerts a stronger inhibitory influence on responsivity than a visual warning stimulus. In contrast, visual temporal reference memory may be more permanent than auditory reference memory, although auditory temporal information and visual temporal information do not mutually interfere in reference memory (Ogden et al 2008).…”