ArticleFrontiers in psychology2019
Why Is There So Much More Research on Vision Than on Any Other Sensory Modality?
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 82 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
82 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- European Stroke Organisation (ESO) guideline on visual impairment in stroke.European stroke journal · 2025Guideline
- The Convergent Validity Between Two Adult Self-Report Sensory Processing Scales.Canadian journal of occupational therapy. Revue canadienne d'ergotherapie · 2026Article
- Article
- Emotional Context Modulates the Response to Somatosensory Stimuli Within 20 milliseconds.Human brain mapping · 2026Article
- What role does temporal synchrony play in mid-level audiovisual crossmodal correspondences?Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Review
- Development and psychometric validation of a novel, self-report visual processing questionnaire (ViPro-SR) for neurodivergent adults.Current psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.) · 2026Article
- Dietary supplement use for eye health in adults: knowledge, motivations, and consumption patterns in a nationwide sample of adults in Poland, 2026.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Crossmodal counterpoint: from music to multimedia - incongruency, cognitive dissonance, irony, and surrealism.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Wayfinding with Impaired Vision: Preferences for Cues, Strategies, and Aids (Part I-Perspectives from Visually Impaired Individuals).Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Foveal crowding increases with age under limited viewing conditions.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Visual information processing characteristics of tactical decisions of soccer players in 3V3 offense scenarios.BMC sports science, medicine & rehabilitation · 2025Article
- Early and Late ERP Correlates of Conscivousness- A Direct Comparison Between Visual and Auditory Modalities.Psychophysiology · 2025Article
- Bio-Inspired Ionic Sensors: Transforming Natural Mechanisms into Sensory Technologies.Nano-micro letters · 2025Review
- Assessing the limits on size-pitch mapping reveals the interplay between top-down and bottom-up influences on relative crossmodal correspondences.Psychological research · 2025Article
- "Distribution of dominant wavelengths predicts jackdaw (Frontiers in physiology · 2025Article
- Sensory reweighting for postural stability in individuals with low vision and blindness: balance adaptation and muscle co-contraction.Frontiers in physiology · 2025Article
- Exploring how sensory dominance modulated by modality-specific expectation: an event-related potential study.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Perceptual learning and neural correlates of virtual navigation in subjective cognitive decline: A pilot study.iScience · 2024Article
- Beyond self-report: Measuring visual, auditory, and tactile mental imagery using a mental comparison task.Behavior research methods · 2024Article
- Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex reduced attentional bias toward natural emotional sounds.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2024Article
22 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
1 author.
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Abstract
Why is there so much more research on vision than on any other sensory modality? There is a seemingly easy answer to this question: It is because vision is our most important and most complex sense. Although there are arguments in favor of this explanation, it can be challenged in two ways: by showing that the arguments regarding the importance and complexity of vision are debatable and by demonstrating that there are other aspects that need to be taken into account. Here, I argue that the explanation is debatable, as there are various ways of defining "importance" and "complexity" and, as there is no clear consensus that vision is indeed the most important and most complex of our senses. Hence, I propose two additional explanations: According to the methodological-structural explanation, there is more research on vision because the available, present-day technology is better suited for studying vision than for studying other modalities - an advantage which most likely is the result of an initial bias toward vision, which reinforces itself. Possible reasons for such an initial bias are discussed. The cultural explanation emphasizes that the dominance of the visual is not an unchangeable constant, but rather the result of the way our societies are designed and thus heavily influenced by human decision-making. As it turns out, there is no universal hierarchy of the senses, but great historical and cross-cultural variation. Realizing that the dominance of the visual is socially and culturally reinforced and not simply a law of nature, gives us the opportunity to take a step back and to think about the kind of sensory environments we want to create and about the kinds of theories that need to be developed in research.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.