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Intersensory facilitation in the motor component?

A reaction time analysis

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Summary

In the bimodal detection task the observer must respond as soon as a signal is presented in either of two modalities (e.g., a tone or a flash). A typical finding is a facilitation of reaction time for redundant signal trials, that is, when both signals are presented simultaneously or with a short delay. Models advanced for this effect imply either statistical facilitation (separate activation) or intersensory facilitation (coactivation). This paper reports a study investigating whether part of the facilitation can be accounted for by coactivation in the motor component. An analysis of the distributions of reaction time differences between left and right hand responses from a double response paradigm gave some evidence in favor of this hypothesis. In particular, our data suggest a u-shaped functional dependence of the amount of facilitation in the motor component on the interstimulus interval.

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Diederich, A., Colonius, H. Intersensory facilitation in the motor component?. Psychol. Res 49, 23–29 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00309199

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00309199

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