No Evidence That Sound–Shape Associations Influence Temporal Resolution in Humans: Five Nonreplications of Parise and Spence (2009) and Meta-Analyses.
Sound–shape associations (e.g., preferentially matching angular shapes with high-pitched sounds and smooth shapes with low-pitched ones) have been almost universally observed in humans. If cross-modally congruent sounds and shapes are more robustly integrated in humans, distinguishing them in time m...
| Published in: | Journal of Experimental Psychology. General Vol. 154; no. 2; pp. 522 - 533 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
| Format: | Article |
| Published: |
American Psychological Association
Feb2025
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=182618781&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 182618781 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00963445 EPG jtl: Journal of Experimental Psychology. General issn: 00963445 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Feb2025 vid: 154 iid: 2 pid: 34 pub: American Psychological Association artinfo: ui: 182618781 10.1037/xge0001641 ppf: 522 ppct: 11 formats: tig: atl: No Evidence That Sound–Shape Associations Influence Temporal Resolution in Humans: Five Nonreplications of Parise and Spence (2009) and Meta-Analyses. aug: au: Sourav, Suddha Röder, Brigitte Ambsdorf, Franka Melissari, Andromachi Arvaniti, Miketa Vatakis, Argiro affil: Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Hamburg Jasti V Ramanamma Children's Eye Care Center, Child Sight Institute, L V Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad, Telangana, India Department of Philosophy and History of Science, University of Athens Department of Psychology, School of Social Science, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences keyword: Bouba/Kiki effect cross-modal correspondence multisensory processing sound–shape association time perception Bouba/Kiki effect cross-modal correspondence multisensory processing sound–shape association time perception ab: Sound–shape associations (e.g., preferentially matching angular shapes with high-pitched sounds and smooth shapes with low-pitched ones) have been almost universally observed in humans. If cross-modally congruent sounds and shapes are more robustly integrated in humans, distinguishing them in time might be hypothetically more challenging compared to incongruent sound–shape pairings. Supporting this premise, a highly cited work by Parise and Spence (2009; n = 12) reported worse temporal order judgement performance for audiovisual stimuli with congruent compared to incongruent sound–shape associations. Here, we report the results of five experiments across two laboratories, including a preregistered replication attempt, all (∑n = 102) failing to replicate the original results. Additionally, frequentist and Bayesian meta-analyses found no evidence against the null hypothesis, revealing a negligible effect size. The combined results indicate that multisensory temporal resolution in humans is unaffected by sound–shape associations, which might arise at a later (or parallel) processing stage compared to cross-modal temporal order judgements. Public Significance Statement: Humans generally associate arbitrary shapes and sounds in a similar way—for example, most people preferentially match the meaningless names "Bouba" and "Kiki" with smooth and spiky shapes, respectively. An influential study by Parise and Spence (2009) reported that sounds and shapes that go well together were more difficult to tell apart in time compared to sounds and shapes that did not match. Does sound–shape association really bind auditory and visual events stronger in time? In five replication experiments across two labs with more than a hundred participants (totaling more than eight times the sample size of the original study), we surprisingly found no evidence for this claim. These results argue that the timekeeping mechanisms that help us distinguish events across the auditory and the visual senses are not influenced by sound–shape associations. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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