The Effect of Age on Crossmodal Matching using Auditory Frequency

Abstract

A limited number of multimodal studies conduct crossmodal matching – a step to ensure cues are perceived to be of equal intensity across sensory modalities. The majority of work on crossmodal matching was conducted by Stevens from the 1950-1960’s, but there has been limited work on the development of a reliable crossmodal matching method to be used in more recent multimodal studies. A few studies have contributed to this goal; however, there has been little consideration towards identifying which parameters map between each modality and whether age significantly contributes to the between-subject variability. The goal of the current study is to investigate how auditory pitch and age affects crossmodal matching and the variability in the matches made. The findings of this study revealed that when auditory pitch is varied, there is a significant effect of age, especially when participants were able to control the intensity of the auditory modality. Additionally, there was significant variability between different modality combinations across both age groups. The findings demonstrate the importance of considering the appropriate parameters to be used across different sensory modalities and the effect age has on crossmodal matching.