Visual-auditory cross-modal transfer by kindergarten children.

Birch and Belmont (1965) attributed failures of kindergarten children to transfer from the visual to auditory sense modalities to the absence of maturationally determined sensory-integrative mechanisms. The present study examined the hypothesis rhat children of this age range are capable of such transfer if provided with procedures which orient them to the critical aspects of the stimuli. Three groups of 15 kindergarten children differed only with respect to the treatment given in the first of the three phases of the experiment. In phase 2 each subject responded on a visual discrimination task to one of two horizontal dot parrerns ( . . . . and . . . . ) as "special." In phase 3 the test for cross-modal transfer was a single auditory presentation via a telegraph key o€ one dot pattern. During phase 1, subjects given relevant pretraining were required to make appropriate motor and verbal responses simultaneously to visual presentations of the dot patterns. This involved pointing to each dot in a left to right sequence while vocalizing "beeps" with the correct temporal spacing. An irrelevant pretraining group was required to make the same responses to l-in. and 1 %-in. vertical lines. This controlled for experience with responses related to the critical aspects of the phase 2 and 3 stimuli. The third condition controlled for experience with the relevant stimuli. Subjects made intramodal same-different judgments of visual and auditory presentations of the dot patterns. The means and standard deviations for the relevant ~rerrainina. irrelevant retraining. and same-different conditions during phases 1 and 2: respectively, were as iollows: 12.40 (5.68), 23.47 (12.84). 27.47 (12.96); and 11.93 (5.82), 10.67 (2.91), 11.47 (4.70). The three groups d~ffered ~n the number of trials required to meet the phase 1 criterion of nine oucof ten correct responses (F2.r:. = 7.00, p-< ,005). subjet% given relevant pretraining reached criterion in significantly fewer trials than either the irrelevant pretrained (p < .05) or same-different (p < .01) control groups, which did nor differ from each other. The groups did not differ in reaching criterion on the visual discrimination (phase 2) task (F < 1.00). A binomial test of exact probabilities indicated that the number of subjects given relevant pretraining who responded correctly on the auditory transfer trial (12 out of 15) differed significantly from chance (p = .036). Neither of the other groups performed at a better than chance level (8 out of 15 and 7 out of 15 for the irrelevant pretraining and same-different groups, respectively). The present demonstration of visual-auditory transfer refutes the position rhat failures of kindergarten children may be attributed to the absence of maturationally dependent mechanisms. The relevant pretraining task was designed to emphasize the spatial and temporal attributes of the dot patterns. The extreme rapidiry with which these subjects solved the pretraining task in comparison to the other groups suggests rhat the procedures rapidly oriented them to the differentiating features of the dot patterns. It may be helpful, when attempting to teach a child a difficult discrimination. to require responses which differ with respect to the same critical features as the to-bediscriminated stimuli.