No evidence that sound-shape associations influence temporal resolution in humans: Five nonreplications of Parise and Spence (2009) and meta-analyses

Suddha Sourav ¹, Brigitte Röder ¹, Franka Ambsdorf ¹

⁰Institute of Psychology, University of Hamburg.

Journal of Experimental Psychology. General +

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September 19, 2024

View abstract on PubMed

Summary

Sound-shape associations do not impact multisensory temporal resolution. Five experiments and meta-analyses found no evidence that congruent sound-shape pairings are harder to distinguish in time than incongruent ones.

Area Of Science

Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience
Sensory Integration

Background

Sound-shape associations, linking auditory and visual stimuli (e.g., high pitch with angular shapes), are widely observed in humans.
It was hypothesized that cross-modal congruence might impair temporal order judgment (TOJ) due to robust integration, as suggested by prior research.

Purpose Of The Study

To investigate whether sound-shape congruence affects audiovisual temporal resolution.
To replicate and extend findings on the impact of sound-shape associations on temporal order judgment.

Main Methods

Five experiments were conducted across two laboratories with a total of 102 participants.
A preregistered replication attempt of a previous study was included.
Frequentist and Bayesian meta-analyses were performed on the collected data.

Main Results

The study failed to replicate the original finding of worse temporal order judgement for congruent sound-shape pairings.
Meta-analyses revealed no significant evidence against the null hypothesis, indicating a negligible effect size.
No impact of sound-shape associations on multisensory temporal resolution was detected.

Conclusions

Multisensory temporal resolution in humans is not affected by sound-shape associations.
Sound-shape associations may arise at later or parallel processing stages than cross-modal temporal order judgments.