Visual dominance: An information-processing account of its origins and significance.

Abstract

In many situations, visual input tends to dominate other modalities in perceptual and memorial reports and in speeded responses. Visual dominance appears to be related to the relatively weak capacity of visual inputs to alert the organism to their occurrence. In response to this reduced alerting, subjects tend to keep their attention tuned to the visual modality. This bias works via prior entry to allow vision to control the mechanisms that subserve conscious reports. The study of visual dominance provides a model situation in which chronometric and phenomenological techniques can be brought together to produce a more complete picture of the relation between information processing and awareness. Process models of perceptual phenomena (Chase, 1973) usually emphasize the flow of information within and between such systems as visual and acoustic analyzers, short- and long-term memories, and decision and response systems. Most often, some form of mental chronometry (Posner, in press), such