Infants' detection of synchrony between sounds and pauses in the movement of an object

Authors

Linda Alberga, Florida International University

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

Master of Science (MS)

Major/Program

Psychology

First Advisor's Name

Lorraine Bahrick

First Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Chair

Second Advisor's Name

William Kurtines

Third Advisor's Name

Janat Parker

Date of Defense

3-28-1994

Abstract

The present study investigated the development of sensitivity to temporal synchrony between sounds of impact and pauses in the movement of an object by infants of 2 1/2, 4 and 6 months of age. Ninety infants were tested across four experiments with side-by-side videos of a red and white square and a blue and yellow triangle along with a centralized soundtrack which was synchronized with only one of the films. This preference phase was then followed by a search phase, where the two films were accompanied by intermittent bursts of the soundtrack from each object. Twomonth- olds showed no evidence of matching films and soundtracks on the basis of synchrony, however 4-month-olds looked more on the second block of trials to the object which paused when the sound occurred and directed more first looks during the preference phase to the matching object. Six-month-olds demonstrated significantly more first looks to the mismatched object during the search phase only. These results suggest that infants relate impact sounds with synchronous pauses in continuous motion by the age of four months.

Identifier

FI13101562

Recommended Citation

Alberga, Linda, "Infants' detection of synchrony between sounds and pauses in the movement of an object" (1994). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1188.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/1188