Abstract: Lists of 8 words each were presented by means of a tape-recorder. Different lists of words were printed on the back of the tapes. The presentations of the visual and the auditory materials were practically synchronized, and for 4 trials the Ss had to memorize the two different lists simultaneously. Control tests with only visually or aurally presented materials were also carried out.The results indicated that, in comparison with control tests, the efficiency of simultaneous memorization of different visually and aurally presented materials is much lower. The Ss could hardly discover the meaningful connection between the visually, and the aurally presented words. Both the reaction time and the recall time were lengthened and more errors were made. In the first trial, aurally presented materials were remembered better than the visually presented; in the second and the third trial, the dominance was shifted to the visual materials; and in the fourth trial very marked dominance was on the visual side.It is conjectured that when two sense organs are stimulated simultaneously, two centres of excitation may take place on the cerebral cortex. The two centres inhibit each other, so that the general efficiency of memorization is low and there may be a temporary dominance of the one centre over the other. With more practice materials of different modalities may be thoroughly mastered and the two centres of excitation may fuse with each other.

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