Crossmodal spatial congruence effects: visual dominance in conditions of increased and reduced selection difficulty

The present study investigated crossmodal spatial congruence effects in the cued modality-switching paradigm of Lukas, Philipp, and Koch (Psychol Res 74:255-267, 2010). Bimodal auditory and visual spatial-location stimuli were presented simultaneously, and participants responded with a left or right key press to the left or right location of the stimulus in the cued modality. Results replicated the asymmetric spatial congruence effects reported by Lukas et al. for a compatible mapping of stimulus locations to responses, with higher performance cost for spatially incongruent stimuli when the relevant modality was auditory and the irrelevant modality visual than when the relation was opposite. A similar result pattern was found when the stimulus-response mapping was incompatible and when the responses differed along an orthogonal vertical axis, consistent with the view that the visual dominance effect depends on correspondence between the auditory and visual stimulus locations. Blocking the relevant modality to remove uncertainty reduced but did not eliminate the visual dominance effect, even with brief stimulus durations. The findings provide broad support for crossmodal visual dominance, even when participants know to direct attention to the auditory modality.