title: Crossmodal synesthetic congruency improves visual timing in dyslexic children.
abstract: Consistent with the temporal ventriloquism effect, synesthetic correspondence between the features of visual size and auditory pitch has been shown to modulate the performance of visual temporal order judgment (TOJ) in typical adults. Here in the two main experiments we recruited seventeen dyslexic children and twenty typically developing children to perform a visual TOJ task and measured their ability of synesthetic correspondence between visual size and auditory pitch. In Experiment 1, participants were shown two consecutively presented visual discs that were temporally flanked by two synesthetic congruent or incongruent auditory beeps. In Experiment 2, participants received a crossmodal matching test (visual-size vs. auditory pitch). The results showed that compared to the typically developing group, dyslexic children benefited more from cross-modal synesthetic correspondence to partially compensate for their deficiency in visual TOJ task. The multisensory facilitation for timing performance was correlated with reading ability (Exp.1). Moreover, dyslexic children formed intact "congruent" matching of visually larger shapes to lower auditory pitch, and visually smaller shapes to higher auditory pitch, as did their typically developing peers (Exp 2). The results of our present study suggested general deficits of temporal processing in dyslexic children, However, with relatively intact ability of auditory pitch-visual size matching, dyslexic children could separate visual events using auditory cues. The current study also indicates a feasible way to improve the reading ability by exploiting temporal ventriloquism effect, modulated by appropriate crossmodal synesthetic associations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China; Key Laboratory of Machine Perception (Ministry of Education), Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. Electronic address: CLH@pku.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Lihan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Manli
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ai
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Weiyi
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Xiangzhi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Meng
mesh_terms: D001307:Auditory Perception; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D003463:Cues; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D010468:Perceptual Disorders; D000080311:Synesthesia; D013998:Time Perception; D014796:Visual Perception
keywords: Crossmodal; Dyslexia; Synesthetic congruency; Temporal order judgment; Temporal ventriloquism