A signal detection study of the Colavita visual dominance effect.

When presented with auditory, visual, or bimodal audiovisual stimuli in a speeded detection/discrimination task, participants fail to respond to the auditory component of the bimodal targets significantly more often than they fail to respond to the visual component. Signal detection theory (SDT) was used to explore the contributions of perceptual (sensitivity shifts) and decisional (shifts in response criteria) factors to this effect, known as the Colavita visual dominance effect. Participants performed a version of the Colavita task that had been modified to allow for SDT analyses.

When vision 'extinguishes' touch in neurologically-normal people: extending the Colavita visual dominance effect.

Research has shown that people fail to report the presence of the auditory component of suprathreshold audiovisual targets significantly more often than they fail to detect the visual component in speeded response tasks. Here, we investigated whether this phenomenon, known as the "Colavita effect", also affects people's perception of visuotactile stimuli as well. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants made speeded detection/discrimination responses to unimodal visual, unimodal tactile, and bimodal (visual and tactile) stimuli.

Audiovisual asynchrony modulates the Colavita visual dominance effect.

Participants presented with unimodal auditory, unimodal visual, or bimodal audiovisual stimuli in a speeded discrimination task, fail to respond to the auditory component of bimodal targets significantly more often than they fail to respond to the visual component. We explored the influence of temporal factors on this phenomenon, known as the Colavita visual dominance effect. Participants performed a temporal order judgment (TOJ) task followed by the Colavita task.

Semantic congruency and the Colavita visual dominance effect.

Participants presented with auditory, visual, or bimodal audiovisual stimuli in a speeded discrimination task, fail to respond to the auditory component of bimodal targets significantly more often than to the visual component, a phenomenon known as the Colavita visual dominance effect. Given that spatial and temporal factors have recently been shown to modulate the Colavita effect, the aim of the present study, was to investigate whether semantic congruency also modulates the effect. In the three experiments reported here, participants were presented with a version of the Colavita task in which the stimulus congruency between the auditory and visual components of the bimodal targets was manipulated.

Spatial coincidence modulates the Colavita visual dominance effect.

The Colavita visual dominance effect refers to the phenomenon whereby participants presented with auditory, visual, or audiovisual stimuli in a speeded response task sometimes fail to respond to the auditory component of the bimodal targets. We conducted an experiment on the Colavita effect in which the auditory and visual components of the bimodal targets were presented from either the same or different positions (sides) at one of two eccentricities (13 degrees or 26 degrees ). Participants were presented with auditory, visual, and bimodal stimuli to which they had to respond by pressing an auditory response key, a visual response key, or both response keys, respectively.

Assessing the role of stimulus probability on the Colavita visual dominance effect.

Participants presented with unimodal auditory (A), unimodal visual (V), or bimodal audiovisual stimuli (AV) in a task in which they have to identify the modality of the targets as rapidly as possible, fail to respond to the auditory component of bimodal targets significantly more often than they fail to respond to the visual component. In the majority of published studies on this phenomenon, known as the Colavita effect, the auditory, visual, and bimodal stimuli have been presented in the ratio 40A:40V:20AV. In the present study, we investigated whether the relatively low frequency with which the bimodal targets in previous studies have been presented may have contributed to participants' difficulty in responding to such targets correctly.

Seeing the light: exploring the Colavita visual dominance effect.

The Colavita visual dominance effect refers to the phenomenon whereby participants presented with unimodal auditory, unimodal visual, or bimodal audiovisual stimuli in a speeded discrimination task, fail to respond to the auditory component of bimodal targets significantly more often than they fail to respond to the visual component. The Colavita effect was demonstrated in this study when participants were presented with unimodal auditory, unimodal visual, or bimodal stimuli (in the ratios 40:40:20, Experiment 1; or 33:33:33, Experiment 2), to which they had to respond by pressing an auditory response key, a visual response key, or both response keys. The Colavita effect was also demonstrated when participants had to respond to the bimodal targets using a dedicated third (bimodal) response key (Experiment 3).