Does Intermodal Equivalence Exist between Heteromodal Stimulus Dimensions or between Stimulus Values on those Dimensions?

Abstract

In a same—different judgement task with successively presented signals, subjects matched dots in different vertical positions and tones of different frequencies intramodally and intermodally. The first and second stimuli of trials in each of the four modality conditions were drawn from a set consisting of two, three or five alternatives. In all intermodal set size conditions, the dimensions of pitch and vertical position were related by the same equivalence rule. While intramodal performance improvement depended only on the total number of practice trials at matching on the relevant dimensions, intermodal performance improvement appeared to be related to the number of trials practice with each heteromodal stimulus pairing in a particular set. After performance had approached asymptotic level neither intramodal nor intermodal matching reaction time depended on set size. Mean “same” reaction time was less than mean “different” reaction time, and this difference was greater for intermodal matching than for intramodal matching. The results indicated that intermodal equivalence exists between discrete stimulus values on heteromodal dimensions rather than between the dimensions themselves.

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