Intersensory integration of information

The presentation of identical information to two sensory modalities improves a respondent's performances over his unisensory performance. Prevalent models of stimulus processing treat this performance facilitation as resulting from the improvement of primary channel (sense) function by a modification of primary channel operation caused by the input to the auxiliary channel. It is argued here that the second channel does not modify the first, but that a merging of information occurs. A model built on this assumption is presented. Two choice reaction time experiments are reported in which both auditory and visual presentation of information is given to subjects. The visual information is critical to the choice, but it is found that the auditory stimuli alter the subject's response time in accordance with the informational content of the auditory stimuli. This is taken to indicate that the subjects analyzed the information content of both stimuli, and is used in support of the new model which proposes an information merger