Stimulus temporal uncertainty balances intersensory dominance

Vision is typically dominant over audition or touch in human adults. One classic example is the Colavita visual dominance effect: The presentation of a tone sometimes goes undetected when it is paired with a flash even though it is well detected when presented alone. We investigated whether the Colavita visual dominance effect is modulated by stimulus uncertainty in the temporal and spatial domains. In a simple discrimination task, participants were asked to press a predesignated key when detecting a flash, another key when detecting a tone, and both keys when detecting both a flash and a tone. Temporal uncertainty was increased by introducing temporal jitter between trials (Experiment 1), and spatial uncertainty was increased by shifting the flash to different locations (Experiment 2). The Colavita visual dominance effect was reduced when temporal uncertainty was increased, while it remained similar when spatial uncertainty was increased. We therefore demonstrate a novel consideration, where increasing temporal uncertainty balances the competition between vision and audition, suggesting that people’s degree of sensory dominance is malleable. Our result therefore highlights the concept that intersensory competition is susceptible to the temporal predictability of the stimulus, which provides critical insights into the design of effective warning systems in the field of ergonomics.