Inter- vs intra-modal performance of college men and women

Intermodal and intramodal functioning in the auditory and visual sensory modes within the temporal dimension was investigated with 19 male and 18 female college students, ranging in age from 17 to 32 yr. Auditory and visual stimuli were presented by electronic means in a same-different matching task. Four separate conditions were investigated: Auditory-auditory, visual-visual, auditory-visual, and visual-auditory. An analysis of variance was conducted for three main effects: sex, modality, and sensory mode. Women made significantly more correct responses than men. No significant differences were found between the groups' performances on intramodal and intermodal functioning tasks. These results are consistent with the hypotheses that modal functioning reaches asymptote prior to adulthood. Results indicating a difference in modal functioning between the sexes were unexpected.