Tests of auditory-visual integration efficiency within the framework of the fuzzy logical model of perception

The fuzzy logical model of perception [FLMP, Massaro, Perceiving Talking Fa ces: From Speech Perception to a Behavioral Principle (MIT Press, Cambridge , MA, 1998)] has been extremely successful at describing performance across a wide range of ecological domains as well as for a broad spectrum of indi viduals. Because the model predicts optimal or maximally efficient integrat ion, an important issue is whether this is the case for most individuals. T hree databases are evaluated to determine to what extent a significant quan titative improvement in predictive ability can be obtained if integration i s assumed to be somewhat inefficient. For the most part, there were no sign ificant signs of inefficient integration. The previous differences found by Grant and Seitz [J. Acoust. Sec. Am. 104, 2438-2450 (1998)] must be due to their measures of efficiency, which appear to be invalid and/or conflate i nformation with integration efficiency. Finally, the descriptive ability of the FLMP is shown to be theoretically informative and not simply the model 's ability to describe any possible outcome. (C) 2000 Acoustical Society of America. [S0001-4966(00)01008-0].