Crossmodal learning in newborn infants: Inferences about properties of auditory-visual events. Morrongiello, B. A., Fenwick, K. D., & Chance, G. Infant Behavior and Development, 21(4):543–553, 1998.
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The majority of research on infant crossmodal perception has addressed the question of whether infants 4 months and older demonstrate the ability. By contrast, the focus in the present study was on newborns and the primary goal was twofold: to determine if newborns can learn arbitrary sight-sound pairings and to evaluate possible inferences that neonates make when repeatedly presented arbitrary sight-sound pairings. Alert neonates were familiarized with toy-sound pairs using an infant-controlled habituation procedure. They were then given a violation-of-expectancy test to determine if they had learned these sight-sound pairings and drawn any inferences about certain properties of these bimodal events. Results supported the conclusion that infants just a few hours old can learn sight-sound pairings. Furthermore, the findings suggested that newborns expected sight-sound pairs to remain colocated even when they move to a new location, they recognized that the sound was an attribute of a specific object, and they recognized that a specific spatial location was not an attribute of the sight-sound pair. Thus, infants made important and correct inferences based on limited experiences with specific auditory-visual events, and they did so just after birth. Implications of these findings for theories of crossmodal perceptual development are discussed. Copyright © 1998 ABLEX Publishing Corporation.
@article{morrongiello_crossmodal_1998,
	title = {Crossmodal learning in newborn infants: {Inferences} about properties of auditory-visual events},
	volume = {21},
	issn = {01636383},
	doi = {10.1016/s0163-6383(98)90028-5},
	abstract = {The majority of research on infant crossmodal perception has addressed the question of whether infants 4 months and older demonstrate the ability. By contrast, the focus in the present study was on newborns and the primary goal was twofold: to determine if newborns can learn arbitrary sight-sound pairings and to evaluate possible inferences that neonates make when repeatedly presented arbitrary sight-sound pairings. Alert neonates were familiarized with toy-sound pairs using an infant-controlled habituation procedure. They were then given a violation-of-expectancy test to determine if they had learned these sight-sound pairings and drawn any inferences about certain properties of these bimodal events. Results supported the conclusion that infants just a few hours old can learn sight-sound pairings. Furthermore, the findings suggested that newborns expected sight-sound pairs to remain colocated even when they move to a new location, they recognized that the sound was an attribute of a specific object, and they recognized that a specific spatial location was not an attribute of the sight-sound pair. Thus, infants made important and correct inferences based on limited experiences with specific auditory-visual events, and they did so just after birth. Implications of these findings for theories of crossmodal perceptual development are discussed. Copyright © 1998 ABLEX Publishing Corporation.},
	number = {4},
	journal = {Infant Behavior and Development},
	author = {Morrongiello, Barbara A. and Fenwick, Kimberley D. and Chance, Graham},
	year = {1998},
	keywords = {Crossmodal, Inferences, Learning, Newborn, Perception},
	pages = {543--553},
}

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