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Sight Over Sound: Working Memory Differences Between Modalities in Decision-Making and Reasoning

Date

2022-12-08

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

ORCID

0000-0002-8220-2399

Type

Thesis

Degree Level

Masters

Abstract

Every day we utilize the stimuli around us to make decisions, mainly from the visual and auditory modalities. However, research methods investigating the cognitive processes that are involved in decision-making and reasoning processes only utilize a visual presentation of stimuli. Research shows that there is a distinct difference between the encoding and processing of stimuli between the auditory and visual modalities. This difference in stimulus processing may impact the effectiveness of the working memory storage that is used in decision-making and reasoning. This thesis utilized two separate experiments comparing the performance of the auditory and visual modalities on the base rate neglect task. Experiment 1 was not sensitive enough to any working memory differences between modalities. Experiment 2, using a secondary memory load task, did detect differences in working memory capacity, but only within the secondary task. This research shows that there is a difference in the working memory load capacity between modalities, which can be addressed in future studies with more rigorous measurements of cognitive load and provide more insight into modality differences in decision-making and reasoning.

Description

Keywords

Base rate neglect, cognitive load, auditory modality, visual modality, working memory, decision-making, reasoning, memory

Citation

Degree

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Department

Psychology

Program

Psychology

Part Of

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DOI

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