Compatibility effects between sound frequency and tactile elevation

Participants made speeded discrimination responses to unimodal auditory (low-frequency vs. high-frequency sounds) or vibrotactile stimuli (presented to the index finger, upper location vs. to the thumb, lower location). In the compatible blocks of trials, the implicitly related stimuli (i.e. higher-frequency sounds and upper tactile stimuli; and the lower-frequency sounds and the lower tactile stimuli) were associated with the same response key; in the incompatible blocks, weakly related stimuli (i.e. high-frequency sounds and lower tactile stimuli; and the low-frequency sounds and the upper tactile stimuli) were associated with the same response key. Better performance was observed in the compatible (vs. incompatible) blocks, thus providing empirical support for the cross-modal association between the relative frequency of a sound and the relative elevation of a tactile stimulus.

[1]  Bruno L. Giordano,et al.  Spatial representation of pitch height: the SMARC effect , 2006, Cognition.

[2]  C. Spence,et al.  Tactile selective attention and body posture: Assessing the multisensory contributions of vision and proprioception , 2004, Perception & psychophysics.

[3]  L E Marks,et al.  On cross-modal similarity: auditory-visual interactions in speeded discrimination. , 1987, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[4]  R. Stevenson,et al.  The effect of appropriate and inappropriate stimulus color on odor discrimination , 2008, Perception & psychophysics.

[5]  Lawrence E. Marks,et al.  Visual-auditory interaction in speeded classification: Role of stimulus difference , 1995, Perception & psychophysics.

[6]  James T. Townsend,et al.  The Stochastic Modeling of Elementary Psychological Processes , 1983 .

[7]  Jamie Ward,et al.  The Aesthetic Appeal of Auditory-Visual Synaesthetic Perceptions in People without Synaesthesia , 2008, Perception.

[8]  L. Marks.  Similarities and differences among the senses. , 1983, The International journal of neuroscience.

[9]  Charles Spence,et al.  Multisensory synesthetic interactions in the speeded classification of visual size , 2006, Perception & psychophysics.

[10]  Colin W G Clifford,et al.  Dissociating Detection from Localization of Tactile Stimuli , 2004, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[11]  Robert D. Melara,et al.  Interaction between synesthetically corresponding dimensions. , 1987 .

[12]  Charles Spence,et al.  Olfactory-tactile compatibility effects demonstrated using a variation of the Implicit Association Test. , 2007, Acta psychologica.

[13]  Caterina Cinel,et al.  Cross-modal illusory conjunctions between vision and touch. , 2002, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[14]  L. Marks,et al.  Processes underlying dimensional interactions: Correspondences between linguistic and nonlinguistic dimensions , 1990, Memory & cognition.

[15]  G Turkewitz,et al.  Intersensory interaction in newborns: modification of visual preferences following exposure to sound. , 1981, Child development.

[16]  R. Butler,et al.  Factors that influence the localization of sound in the vertical plane. , 1968, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[17]  L. Marks,et al.  Cross-Modal Interaction between Vision and Touch: The Role of Synesthetic Correspondence , 2000, Perception.

[18]  D. Maurer,et al.  Synesthesia: a new approach to understanding the development of perception. , 2013, Developmental psychology.

[19]  R. Melara,et al.  Dimensional interaction between color and pitch. , 1989, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[20]  R. Melara,et al.  Similarity relations among synesthetic stimuli and their attributes. , 1989, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[21]  S Smith,et al.  Stroop Interference Based on the Synaesthetic Qualities of Auditory Pitch , 1984, Perception.

[22]  Lawrence E. Marks,et al.  Synesthesia: Strong and Weak , 2001 .

[23]  M. Sa,et al.  SPATIAL STEREOTYPES OF FOUR DIMENSIONS OF PURE TONE. , 1963 .

[24]  A. Greenwald,et al.  Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: the implicit association test. , 1998, Journal of personality and social psychology.