Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 12, 2026

Cross-Modal Multivariate Pattern Analysis
Published on: November 9, 2011
Effects of multimodal presentation and stimulus familiarity on auditory and visual processing
Christopher W Robinson1, Vladimir M Sloutsky
1Center for Cognitive Science, Cognitive Development Lab, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA. robinson.777@osu.edu
None:
Two experiments examined the effects of multimodal presentation and stimulus familiarity on auditory and visual processing. In Experiment 1, 10-month-olds were habituated to either an auditory stimulus, a visual stimulus, or an auditory-visual multimodal stimulus. Processing time was assessed during the habituation phase, and discrimination of auditory and visual stimuli was assessed during a subsequent testing phase. In Experiment 2, the familiarity of the auditory or visual stimulus was systematically manipulated by prefamiliarizing infants to either the auditory or visual stimulus prior to the experiment proper. With the exception of the prefamiliarized auditory condition in Experiment 2, infants in the multimodal conditions failed to increase looking when the visual component changed at test. This finding is noteworthy given that infants discriminated the same visual stimuli when presented unimodally, and there was no evidence that multimodal presentation attenuated auditory processing. Possible factors underlying these effects are discussed.
Related Concept Videos
Parallel Processing
Sensory Modalities
General senses refer to the broad category of sensory information detected by receptors in the body and can be further grouped into somatic and visceral senses. Somatic sensations include touch, pressure, temperature, and pain and are essential for navigating our environment and...
Factors Affecting Perception
An illustrative example of a perceptual set is the scenario where an airline pilot told...
Auditory Perception
