Abstract
Three experiments tested the idea that auditory presentation facilitates temporal recall whereas spatial recall is better if the input modality is visual. Lists of words were presented in which the temporal and spatial orders were independent, and instructions to the subjects determined whether recall would be given in a spatial or temporal order. In all three experiments, a significant interaction between the input modality and the type of recall was found, such that visual presentation resulted in superior recall over auditory presentation in the spatial conditions and auditory presentation yielded superior recall to visual in the temporal conditions. The present results contradict an earlier study by Murdock that showed that auditory presentation resulted in better performance than visual presentation in a nominally spatial task. An explanation for the discrepancies between the results of that study and the present one is presented.
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The research was facilitated by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada postgraduate scholarship awarded to the first author, NRC Grant APA 146 to Bennet B. Murdock, Jr., and NRC Grant A8632 to Endel Tulving. This article was based on a master’s thesis submitted by the first author to the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto. Some aspects of this research were presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association in 1978.
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Metcalfe, J., Glavanov, D. & Murdock, M. Spatial and temporal processing in the auditory and visual modalities. Memory & Cognition 9, 351–359 (1981). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03197559
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03197559