Cross-modal transfer in human infants.

This study investigated cross-modal transfer in infants by their proclivity to respond differentially to novel and familiar stimuli after familiarization in a different sensory modality. Across a variety of stimulus shapes, 1-year-old infants significantly and reliably looked more at and reached more for the novel than the familiar stimulus subsequent to information input from tactual stimulation. Furthermore, for the first time, it is demonstrated that not only do infants gain information about the shape of objects from their oral experience with them but this information can be made available to the visual modality.