Multimodal versus Unimodal Information Processing of Words

Sonarmen are constantly confronted with information presented simultaneously through different sensory modalities. Verbal information is one type of input to which they are exposed. Little is known regarding the effect of undirected attention when verbal information is presented simultaneously to the auditory and visual modality. The question of interest is how to unimodal and multimodal presentation conditions differentially affect performance The superiority of any particular modality depends upon the task requirements, response demands and the complexity of the stimuli. Multimodal stimulation facilities the RT of the slower unimodal presentation while providing little if any facilitation to the faster unimodal approach. Sonarmen are exposed to various types of information. Reports of this study and previous studies have shown that the results are task dependent. Therefore, it is important to determine how different types of stimuli interact with modes of presentation and affect sonar performance.