Cross-Modality Matching in Memory Psychophysics: Brightness and Loudness

Abstract

Performance of subjects in tasks involving estimation of remembered magnitude and crass-modality matching of remembered magnitude for brightness and loudness stimuli was examined in two experiments. Subjects first learned nonsense syllable names associated with exemplars of five levels of brightness and exemplars of five levels of loudness. The stimuli were then removed and one of the nonsense syllable names was given by the experimenter. The subject formed an image of what the stimulus denoted by that name looked or sounded like and gave a judgment of remembered magnitude of that stimulus based upon the intensity portrayed in the image. In Exp. 1 subjects also completed a cross-modality matching task in which a stimulus in one dimension was shown, and subjects then estimated the magnitude that a stimulus in the other dimension would have to possess to match the intensity of the perceived stimulus. Performance was compared with that of a perceptual control group. In Exp. 2 subjects also completed a cross-modality matching task in which they were given the nonsense syllable name of a stimulus from one dimension, formed a vivid image of what the stimulus denoted by that name looked or sounded like, formed an image of a stimulus from the other dimension that possessed the same portrayed intensity as the named stimulus from the first dimension, and then estimated the intensity of the second (unnamed) stimulus. The power function offers an appropriate description of the responses on both the remembered magnitude and the cross-modality matching tasks. Implications for theories of imagery and psychophysics are discussed.