On the relative difficulty of auditory and visual temporal and spatial, integrative and nonintegrative sequential pattern comparisons

Abstract

Nine tests requiring visual or auditory pattern comparison, visual-auditory intersensory integration, temporal-spatial integration, or both types of integration simultaneously were administered to 414 first-grade children. Error scores indicate that neither auditory-visual nor temporal-spatial integration is more difficult than similar comparisons not involving integration. Spatial patterns were much easier to compare by contrast to temporal patterns.

Human information processing and sensory modality: Cross-modal functions, information complexity, memory, and deficit.

“…Bryant (1968) pointed out that intrasensory controls had not been run so there was no evidence that intramodal functions were not impaired. Studies of auditory-visual pattern matching by Muehl and Kremenak (1966), McGrady andOlson (1970), Zurif andCarson (1970), Rudel and Teuber (1971), Sterritt, Martin, and Rudnick (1971), Bryden (1972), Kuhlman and Wolking (1972), Rudnick, Martin, andSterritt (1972), andVande Voort, Senf, andBen ton (1972) have substantiated the challenge: Retarded readers, brain-damaged, and middle-class and impoverished children were as impaired intramodally as crossmodally. Furthermore, studies examining vision and touch in normal children and adults (Abravanel, 1972;Cashdan, 1968;Millar, 1972b;Milner & Bryant, 1970;Rose, Blank, & Bridger, 1972) found cross-modal performance equivalent to that of the slowest modality, touch.…”

Auditory and Visual Perception Processes and Reading Ability: A Quantitative Reanalysis and Historical Reinterpretation

“…The basic Birch and Belmont (1964) task was refined and extended to include (a) longer versions of the basic task (presumably to increase reliability), (b) increased test ceiling, and (c) more precision in presenting auditory stimuli. Additionally, the Birch and Belmont assessments were criticized as "impure" measures of AVI that confounded integrative abilities (Rudnick, Martin, & Sterritt, 1972;Rudnick, Sterritt, & Flax, 1967;Sterritt, Martin, & Rudnick, 1971). Consequently, procedures that did not confound the basic integration task were developed and were considered "pure" tests of AVI.…”

Visual and Auditory Temporal Processing, Cross-Modal Transfer, and Reading

“…The first, and most widely acknowledged, had to do with the absence of intramodal controls. When such controls are used in studies with nondisabled children, cross-modal matching is sometimes easier and often no more difficult than the most difficult of the two intramodal matches (Botuck & Turkewitz, 1990;Rudnick, Martin, & Sterritt, 1972;Rudnick, Sterritt, & Flax, 1967;Sterritt, Martin, & Rudnick, 1971; for a review, see Friedes, 1974). In the absence of such intramodal controls in the Birch and Belmont study, it is impossible to know whether the deficits of children with reading disability were inherently cross-modal or whether these children would have had difficulty recognizing temporal patterns even within a modality.…”

“…The second design problem was that cross-modal transfer in the Birch and Belmont (1964) study was confounded with a switch from temporal to spatial presentation. Thus, poor performance could have been due to difficulties in making the temporal-spatial transposition rather than to difficulties in transfer across sensory modalities (see Botuck & Turkewitz, 1990;Friedes, 1974;Rudnick et al, 1972;Sterritt et al, 1971). Sterritt, Rudnick, and Flax (1967) found that good readers outperformed poor readers on a Birch and Belmonttype task even when the temporal presentation was visual instead of auditory, a modification that preserved the temporal-spatial transposition while eliminating the need for crossmodal integration.…”