Newborns’ ability to match non-speech audio-visual information in the absence of temporal synchrony

Multisensory experiences crucially contribute to the development of infants’ ability to match audio-visual (A-V) information. This study investigated two-day-old newborns’ ability to bind non-verbal, naturally occurring, experienced A-V stimuli. Our results demonstrate that, when presented with experienced stimuli (yawns and hiccups) within an intermodal matching procedure, 2-days-old newborns matched not only synchronous (Experiment 1) but also asynchronous A-V information (Experiment 2). Conversely, no evidence of A-V association was found when unexperienced stimuli, such as a linguistic sound (syllable/ba/) (Experiment 3), were presented in asynchrony. The possible role of sensorimotor experience in the early emergence of intersensory abilities is discussed.