Human characteristics of parallel information processing on visual and auditory systems

Human visual and auditory characteristics have been studied frequently as two separate systems. However, interactive characteristics between the visual and the auditory systems are not very investigated. If the mechanisms of human visual and auditory systems are elucidated, the findings will contribute to technology application areas. In this study, the interactive characteristics between the visual and the auditory systems are measured. The experimental results suggested that the auditory and the visual reaction times are increased with increasing the difficulty of stimuli. Furthermore, when the visual and the auditory stimuli are concurrently presented, the auditory reaction time and the visual reaction time are longer than the cases of that the auditory or the visual stimulus is separately presented. The results suggested that the auditory and the visual systems are affected each other. Based on the experimental results, a model of human interactive characteristic between the visual and the auditory reaction time has been proposed. It is expected that the proposed model is useful to investigate the mechanism of human visual and auditory concurrent information processing.