Effect of same- and different-modality spatial cues on auditory and visual target identification

Abstract

A target identification paradigm was used to study cross-modal spatial cuing effects on auditory and visual target identification. Each trial consisted of an auditory or visual spatial cue followed by an auditory or visual target. The cue and target could be either of the same modality (within-modality conditions) or of different modalities (between-modalities conditions). In 3 experiments, a larger cue validity effect was apparent on within-modality trials than on between-modalities trials. In addition, the likelihood of identifying a significant cross-modal cuing effect was observed to depend on the predictability of the cue-target relation. These effects are interpreted as evidence (a) of separate auditory and visual spatial attention mechanisms and (b) that target identification may be influenced by spatial cues of another modality but that this effect is primarily dependent on the engagement of endogenous attentional mechanisms.