Touching Emotions, Smelling Shapes: Exploring Tactile, Olfactory and Emotional Cross-sensory Correspondences in Preschool Aged Children

TL;DR

This study investigates how preschool children perceive and relate different sensory inputs and emotions, revealing significant cross-sensory correspondences and providing new empirical insights and methods for early childhood sensory research.

Contribution

It offers the first empirical exploration of smell-touch-emotion correspondences in preschoolers, along with design guidelines and a replicable research method.

Findings

Significant sensory and emotional correspondences found

Association strategies underpin cross-sensory mappings

Provides a new method for early childhood sensory research

Abstract

The use of a wide range of sensory modalities is increasingly central to technologies for learning, communication, and affective regulation. During the preschool years, sensory integration develops rapidly, shaping how children perceive and make sense of their environments. A key component of this process is cross-sensory correspondence: the systematic ways in which perceptions in different sensory modalities influence one another. Despite its relevance, little is known about cross-sensory correspondences in preschool-aged children (2-4 years). We present a study with 26 preschoolers examining smell-touch-emotion correspondences through playful tasks. We found significant correspondences both between sensory modalities and between sensory modalities and affective judgements. Further analysis revealed association strategies underpinning these mappings. We contribute empirical insights into cross-sensory correspondences in early childhood, design guidelines that align with how preschoolers relate sensory input, and a replicable method for probing cross-sensory cognition in this age group.