Department of Psychology, Developmental and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA 02125, USA; Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada.
Department of Psychology, Developmental and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA 02125, USA; Division of Epidemiology, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5T 3M7, Canada.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2021 Sep;209:105167. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105167. Epub 2021 Apr 26.
Sound-shape crossmodal correspondence, the naturally occurring associations between abstract visual shapes and nonsense sounds, is one aspect of multisensory processing that strengthens across early childhood. Little is known regarding whether school-aged children exhibit other variants of sound-shape correspondences such as audio-tactile (AT) associations between tactile shapes and nonsense sounds. Based on previous research in blind individuals suggesting the role of visual experience in establishing sound-shape correspondence, we hypothesized that children would show weaker AT association than adults and that children's AT association would be enhanced with visual experience of the shapes. In Experiment 1, we showed that, when asked to match shapes explored haptically via touch to nonsense words, 6- to 8-year-olds exhibited inconsistent AT associations, whereas older children and adults exhibited the expected AT associations, despite robust audio-visual (AV) associations found across all age groups in a related study. In Experiment 2, we confirmed the role of visual experience in enhancing AT association; here, 6- to 8-year-olds could exhibit the expected AT association if first exposed to the AV condition, whereas adults showed the expected AT association irrespective of whether the AV condition was tested first or second. Our finding suggests that AT sound-shape correspondence is weak early in development relative to AV sound-shape correspondence, paralleling previous findings on the development of other types of multisensory associations. The potential role of visual experience in the development of sound-shape correspondences in other senses is discussed.
声音-形状跨模态对应，即抽象视觉形状和无意义声音之间自然产生的关联，是多感觉处理的一个方面，在整个儿童早期都会增强。对于学龄儿童是否表现出其他类型的声音-形状对应，例如触觉形状和无意义声音之间的音频触觉（AT）关联，知之甚少。基于先前研究表明视觉经验在建立声音-形状对应中的作用，我们假设儿童的 AT 关联比成人弱，并且儿童的 AT 关联会随着对形状的视觉经验而增强。在实验 1 中，我们表明，当要求儿童将通过触觉探索的形状与无意义的单词进行匹配时，6 至 8 岁的儿童表现出不一致的 AT 关联，而较大的儿童和成人则表现出预期的 AT 关联，尽管在相关研究中所有年龄组都发现了强大的视听（AV）关联。在实验 2 中，我们证实了视觉经验在增强 AT 关联中的作用；在这里，如果首先接触 AV 条件，6 至 8 岁的儿童可以表现出预期的 AT 关联，而成年人则无论首先测试 AV 条件还是其次，都表现出预期的 AT 关联。我们的发现表明，相对于 AV 声音-形状对应，AT 声音-形状对应在发育早期较弱，与先前关于其他类型多感觉关联发展的发现一致。讨论了视觉经验在其他感觉中声音-形状对应发展中的潜在作用。
