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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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is yet unclear whether congenitally deaf cochlear implant (CD CI) users' visual and multisensory emotion perception is influenced by their history in sign language acquisition. We hypothesized that early-signing CD CI users, relative to late-signing CD CI users and hearing, non-signing controls, show better facial expression recognition and rely more on the facial cues of audio-visual emotional stimuli. Two groups of young adult CD CI users--early signers (ES CI users; n = 11) and late signers (LS CI users; n = 10)--and a group of hearing, non-signing, age-matched controls (n = 12) performed an emotion recognition task with auditory, visual, and cross-modal emotionally congruent and incongruent speech stimuli. On different trials, participants categorized either the facial or the vocal expressions. The ES CI users more accurately recognized affective prosody than the LS CI users in the presence of congruent facial information. Furthermore, the ES CI users, but not the LS CI users, gained more than the controls from congruent visual stimuli when recognizing affective prosody. Both CI groups performed overall worse than the controls in recognizing affective prosody. These results suggest that early sign language experience affects multisensory emotion perception in CD CI users.

It has recently been observed, that a change in the crop spectrum happened during the so-called Middle Neolithic in France at ca. 4000 BC. An agricultural system based on free-threshing cereals (naked wheat and naked barley) seems to shift to one based on glume wheats. This is a major change for traditional farmers and this paper aims to shed light on its possible causes. Here we describe the results of new investigations in a key area for the understanding of this process: the NW Mediterranean arch, where free-threshing cereals are the main cultivars since ca. 5100 BC. New data confirm that the shift towards glume wheats is also observed in some sites of the NE of the Iberian Peninsula and that among the glume wheats that spread at ca. 4000 BC we should not only consider emmer and einkorn but also Timopheevi's wheat. Stable isotope analyses indicate no major decrease in soil fertility or alterations in local precipitation regimes. The agricultural change may be the result of a combination of the spread of damaging pests for free-threshing cereals and presumably new networks being developed with the North-eastern part of Italy and the Balkans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the biblical view of the world and of history lost its role as the (sole) authority on answering the ›ultimate questions‹ in the 19th century, the answers have been sought ›at the beginning of history‹. Prehistory represents this ›beginning‹. Its enormous chronological depth of approx. 2.8 million years is ignored and compressed into a quasi-timeless ›primordial and natural state‹. This serves as a projection surface for a ›social primordial time‹ born from our imagination, which we refer back to, by way of a circular argument, as a point of orientation, legitimation and self-assurance. This presentation of an imagined ›social primordial time‹ and the associated nostrification of the prehistoric people can be viewed as a colonialist practice. The appropriation of the past for actualistic needs is a ›project run by society as a whole‹ which is supported and contributed to by various academic disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]