Little to be Expected from Auditory Training for Improving Visual Temporal Discrimination

It is known that the processing of temporal information is much more efficient in the auditory than in the visual modality. This study analyzes the possibility of improving the discrimination of short temporal intervals marked by two brief visual signals. The present experiment involves the simultaneous presentation of both auditory and visual signals and extensive duration discrimination training.The results show that visual duration discrimination gains a slight but statistically significant benefit from the auditory context, but that this benefit is not permanent and may partly depend on the initial level of discrimination. Finally, in spite of extensive training, performance levels remained much lower when only visual signals were presented than when auditory signals were presented.