ABSTRACT
The model of sensory integration provides a theoretical base for speculations regarding the course of sensory integration development. The intersensory perception of pattern should be distinguished from the perception of equivalences between sensory-specific patterns, such as the associative equivalences between sounds and colours. Adequate anticipation, which may be observed in adults and older children, constitutes the final state of intersensory anticipation-development. Theoretically, the initial state may be characterized by the total absence of intersensory anticipation. Intersensory comparability of patterns is attained by means of identical pattern-perception systems or by means of translation rules that translate patterns from one sensory language into another one. Skin potential and heart rate measures of attention-recovery showed that the infants had discriminated identical from different temporal sequences, in spite of the different sensory modalities in which they were presented. The theoretical initial state must be characterized by the absence of intersensory pattern perception.
