Visual and haptic cue utilization by preschool children: The recognition of visual and haptic stimuli presented separately and together

The visual modality was superior to the haptic under all possible comparisons: Standard, recognition, and intramodal and the latter did not occur for 3 year olds who performed at chance level on haptic tasks.

Abstract

Thirty-six 3- and 4-year-old children were tested on delayed visual and haptic recognition of nonsense shapes under intramodal, crossmodal, and concomitant input conditions in an Age (2) × Standard (3) × Recognition test (2) analysis of variance design. Age, Standard and. Recognition modes were significant effects, and there was a significant Standard × Recognition test interaction. The visual modality was superior to the haptic under all possible comparisons: Standard, recognition, and intramodal. An Age × Standard × Recognition interaction was also found. Visual recognition was not improved when haptic cues were added, but haptic recognition by 4 year olds was improved when visual cues were added. The latter did not occur for 3 year olds who performed at chance level on haptic tasks.