Under some situations sensory modalities compete for
attention, with one modality attenuating processing in a second
modality. Almost forty years of research with adults has shown
that this competition is typically won by the visual modality.
Using a discrimination task on an eye tracker, the current
research provides novel support for auditory dominance, with
words and nonlinguistic sounds slowing down visual
processing. At the same time, there was no evidence suggesting
that visual input slowed down auditory processing. Several eye
tracking variables correlated with behavioral responses. Of
particular interest is the finding that adults’ first fixations were
delayed when images were paired with auditory input,
especially nonlinguistic sounds. This finding is consistent with
neurophysiological findings and also consistent with a
potential mechanism underlying auditory dominance effects