Recognition of intersensory relationships based on duration in infants four, seven and 10 months old (Reconocimiento de relaciones intersensoriales basadas en la duración en bebés de cuatro, siete y 10 meses)

ABSTRACT Since birth, infants develop the ability to perceive a wide range of intersensory relations among various kinds of amodal temporal information. This study addresses the development of the ability to perceive duration-based intersensory relations. Three groups of infants, four, seven and 10 months old, participated in two trials of an intersensory 5preference task that used two audiovisual stimuli showing a woman executing two performances — with characteristics similar to the way adults interact with infants — consisting of sequences of sound-movement/silence-stillness of varying durations. The results show that infants at all three ages recognize the duration-based intersensory relation; however, recognition is expressed in different ways at each age according to the trial and the number of eye fixations recorded. These results are discussed in terms of the development of the ability to recognize duration-based intersensory relations and its relationship to between-subjects development.