MODALITY-SPECIFIC DIFFERENCES IN THE PROCESSING OF SPATIALLY, TEMPORALLY, AND SPATIOTEMPORALLY DISTRIBUTED INFORMATION

The extent to which auditory, tactile, and visual perceptual represent ations are similar, particularly when dealing with speech and speech-l ike stimuli, was investigated. It was found that comparisons between a uditory and tactile patterns were easier to perform than were similar comparisons between auditory and visual stimuli. This was true across a variety of styles of tactile and visual display, and was not due to limitations in the discriminability of the visual displays. The findin gs suggest that auditory and tactile representations of stimuli are mo re alike than are auditory and visual ones. It was also found that tou ch and vision differ in terms of the style of information distribution which they process most efficiently. Touch dealt with patterns best w hen the pattern was characterised by changes across time, whereas visi on did best when spatially or spatiotemporally distributed patterns we re presented. As the sense of-hearing also seems to specialise in the processing of temporally ordered patterns, these results suggest one w ay in which the senses of hearing and touch differ from vision.