Tactual, visual, and cross-modal transfer of texture in 5- and 8-year-old children.
Children's tactual, visual, and cross-modal transfer abilities for texture were investigated in a delayed matching-to-sample paradigm. Transfer performance from vision to touch was found to increase between 5 and 8 years of age, whereas transfer performance from touch to vision did not vary with age and matched touch-to-touch performance. Asymmetrical cross-modal abilities were observed at the age of 8 years, vision-to-touch transfer performance being higher than touch-to-vision transfer performance (experiment 2). This developmental pattern could not be attributed to limitations in the tactual or visual discriminability of the textures or to differences in tactual or visual memory between the two age groups (experiment 1). It is suggested that the increase with age in vision-to-touch performance may be related to the intervention of more efficient top-down perceptual processes in the older children.
Picard
Delphine
D
Department of Psychology, University of Montpellier III, Route de Mende, F 34199 Montpellier, France. delphine.picard@univ-montp3.fr
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D002666:Psychology, Child; D013499:Surface Properties; D014110:Touch; D014163:Transfer, Psychology