Multisensory prior entry

Despite 2 centuries of research, the question of whether attending to a sen sory modality speeds the perception of stimuli in that modality has yet to be resolved. The authors highlight weaknesses inherent in this previous res earch and report the results of 4 experiments in which a novel methodology was used to investigate the effects on temporal order judgments (TOJs) of a ttending to a particular sensory modality or spatial location. Participants were presented with pairs of visual and tactile stimuli from the left and/ or right at varying stimulus onset asynchronies and were required to make u nspeeded TOJs regarding which stimulus appeared first. The results provide the strongest evidence to date for the existence of multisensory prior entr y and support previous claims for attentional biases toward the visual moda lity and toward the right side of space. These findings have important impl ications for studies in many areas of human and animal cognition.