Boundary conditions for the modality effect: Type of material and time of test

Abstract

Recall of auditory and visually presented information was studied using three different types of material. Although auditory presentation was superior for all three types of material, the size and pattern of the effect depended upon whether the visual presentation was successive or simultaneous. Successive visual presentation reduced recall performance compared to auditory presentation considerably for real sentences, while smaller effects were obtained for noun sequences and scrambled sentences. The overall supremacy in recall of auditory presented items was reduced further when compared to a simultaneous visual presentation. In the last two experiments, all effects of modality of presentation obtained in immediate recall were replicated, but were eliminated in delayed recall. The finding that this modality effect is eliminated in delayed recall is taken to indicate that semantic aspects of the material to be remembered are by and large unaffected by mode of presentation, while more superficial aspects are the ones influenced.