Vivian M Ciaramitaro¹ (), Rong Tan², Shibo Cao¹; ¹University of Massachusetts Boston, Department of Psychology, Developmental and Brain Sciences, ²University of Massachusetts Boston, Department of Counseling and School Psychology

How do we know what sensory information goes together? In addition to spatial co-localization and temporal synchrony, we rely on crossmodal correspondences: how features are shared across the senses. For example, nonsense words, such as "bouba", are associated with round abstract shapes and "kiki" with angular shapes. Such associations are observed for auditory and visual stimuli (AV), as well as auditory and tactile stimuli, which are touched but not seen (AT). Visual experience influences AT associations: AT associations are weak in early-blind adults (Fryer et. al., 2014) and in fully-sighted children with naïve visual experience, but are enhanced if fully-sighted children see the shapes first (16 trials of prior AV exposure; Chow et. al., 2021). Here, we examine how the amount of prior visual exposure influences AT associations. Sixty-one 6-8 year-olds completed 4 or 8 trials of AV exposure, seeing a round and spiky shape on a screen and judging which shape best matched a sound. Following exposure, children completed 16 AT test trials, feeling two shapes inside a box and judging which shape best matched a sound. No feedback was provided during exposure or test trials. We found that 8, but not 4, trials of prior AV exposure enhanced AT associations, while neither 4 nor 8 trials of prior AT exposure enhanced AT associations (Chow et. al, 2021 data re-analyzed). Thus, children did not benefit from repeated AT exposure, unlike blind adults where AT associations are enhanced, or blindfolded, fully-sighted adults where AT associations are diminished (Graven et. al., 2018). Children require enough experience with specific visual input to match sounds and shapes that they feel. These results complement our related work indicating that the type of prior exposure matters (see Cao et. al., VSS 2024). Future work needs to address mechanisms by which repeated exposure enhances crossmodal associations.

Acknowledgements: University of Massachusetts Graduate and Undergraduate Research Funds