AUDITORY INSPECTION TIME, SUSTAINED ATTENTION, AND THE FUNDAMENTALITY OF MENTAL SPEED

This study investigates two interelated issues: (i) the view that mental speed is a fundamental property of the nervous system by assessing the relationship between inspection time (M tasks from two sensory modalities, and (ii) the feasibility of conceptualizing the well-known IT-ability relationship in terms of both IT and ability tasks requiring sustained attention. Subjects (N = 78) undertook a pitch discrimination ability (PDA) task and constant and variable foreperiod (FP) IT tasks representing both auditory (AIT) and visual (VIT) modalities. AIT had little relationship to VIT but a close relationship to PDA, suggesting that the AIT procedure principally measures specific auditory abilities. Also, attentional load was found pot to affect the IT ability relationship, suggesting that sustained attention may not moderate the IT-ability relationship. Results are discussed in terms of the implications of the attentional findings and problems with the currently used AIT task.