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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 15, 2026

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization

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The audiovisual tau effect in infancy.

Takahiro Kawabe¹, Nobu Shirai, Yuji Wada

¹Institute for Advanced Study, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Fukuoka, Japan. tkawabe@hes.kyushu-u.ac.jp

|March 9, 2010

Summary

Infants as young as 5-8 months show an audiovisual tau effect, where visual perception is altered by auditory cues. This cross-modal processing, essential for the effect, emerges early in development.

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Area of Science:

Developmental psychology
Cognitive neuroscience
Auditory-visual sensory integration

Background:

The tau effect demonstrates that perceived spatial intervals are distorted by temporal intervals.
Previous research established an audiovisual tau effect using visual flashes and auditory beeps.
This effect suggests cross-modal influences on temporal perception.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the presence of the audiovisual tau effect in human infants (5-8 months old).
To determine if early infancy exhibits cross-modal processing for temporal interval perception.
To identify the necessity of specific auditory cues for inducing the audiovisual tau effect in infants.

Main Methods:

Two experiments were conducted with 48 infants aged 5-8 months.
Experiment 1 involved familiarization with audiovisual stimuli (flashes and beeps) with varied temporal intervals.
Infants' looking preferences for visual stimuli with different spatial intervals were measured post-familiarization.

Main Results:

Infants showed a preferential looking behavior consistent with the audiovisual tau effect in Experiment 1.
Removing certain auditory cues in Experiment 2 eliminated the audiovisual tau effect.
This highlights the critical role of temporal modulation by auditory stimuli.

Conclusions:

The findings suggest that cross-modal processing underlying the audiovisual tau effect is present in early infancy.
Audiovisual modulation of temporal intervals emerges by 5-8 months of age.
This indicates sophisticated sensory integration capabilities in pre-verbal infants.