Auditory-Visual Transfer in Four-Month-Old Infants

Abstract

4-month-old infants were presented a 60-sec recording of a syllable repeated in either a regular or an irregular rhythm. The rhythms contained the same time intervals, but the pattern of the intervals differed. Following the sound, the infants were shown a 90-sec silent film of a puppet opening and closing its mouth, either in the familiar rhythm or in a novel rhythm. Infants receiving the regular sound watched the film more than infants receiving the irregular sound, a finding that was explained in terms of a transmodal "positive contrast" effect. More important, infants who saw the puppet move in a novel rhythm watched the film longer (measured in total looking and mean look) than infants who saw it move in a familiar rhythm. This is the first demonstration of auditory-visual transfer of temporal information in infants as young as 4 months.