DOI: 10.6129/CJP.20150704
Chinese Journal of Psychology 2016, Vol.58, No.2, 89-107

Using Systems Factorial Technology to Investigate Cognitive Processing in Redundant Visual-Auditory Signals

Cheng-Ta Yang（Department of Psychology, National Cheng Kung University）；Ju-Chi Yu（Department of Psychology, National Cheng Kung University）；Wen-Sheng Chang（Department of Psychology, National Cheng Kung University）

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that visual and auditory information are correlated, leading to an integration
account for visual and auditory processing. However, in previous studies, the inferences regarding the  processing characteristics of visual and auditory information had limitations. Therefore, we adopted the core concepts of Systems Factorial Technology to design experiments, analyze data, and make inferences regarding the processing of visual and auditory signals. Two experiments were performed: In Experiment 1, we used the constant stimuli method to measure participants’ psychometric functions for detecting visual and auditory targets. According to the psychophysics results, we adopted a double factorial design to regenerate the stimuli and test the participants in Experiment 2. The results revealed that all of the participants adopted a parallel, self-terminating strategy to process visual and auditory signals. In addition, the processing capacity varied across the participants. The results did not support the predictions derived from the independent race model or coactivation model. These results are more likely to be explained by the interactive race model, in which visual and auditory information is assumed to be processed in parallel, with crosstalk between visual and auditory channels during information accumulation, and the decision follows a self-terminating stopping rule. The theoretical implications of our findings will be explained in ge neral discussion. 

Keywords: systems factorial technology, visual-auditory integration, redundant-target effect