Effects of multisensory stimulation on infants' learning of object pattern and trajectory

Abstract

AbstractThis study investigated whether infants encode better the features of a briefly occluded object if its movements are specified simultaneously by vision and audition than if they are not (data collected: 2017–2019). Experiment 1 showed that 10‐month‐old infants (N = 39, 22 females, White‐English) notice changes in the visual pattern on the object irrespective of the stimulation received (spatiotemporally congruent audio‐visual stimulation, incongruent stimulation, or visual‐only;  = .53). Experiment 2 (N = 72, 36 female) found similar results in 6‐month‐olds (Test Block 1,  = .13), but not 4‐month‐olds. Experiment 3 replicated this finding with another group of 6‐month‐olds (N = 42, 21 females) and showed that congruent stimulation enables infants to detect changes in object trajectory (d = 0.56) in addition to object pattern (d = 1.15), whereas incongruent stimulation hinders performance.