Explain intermodal perception and its importance to perceptual development

What will be an ideal response?

Intermodal perception is a fundamental ability that fosters all aspects of psychological development. Our world provides rich, continuous intermodal stimulation—simultaneous input from more than one modality, or sensory system. In intermodal perception, we make sense of these running streams of light, sound, tactile, odor, and taste information by perceiving them as unified wholes.
Infants expect sight, sound, and touch to go together. Research reveals that babies perceive input from different sensory systems in a unified way by detecting amodal sensory properties—information that overlaps two or more sensory systems, such as rate, rhythm, duration, intensity, temporal synchrony (for vision and hearing), and texture and shape (for vision and touch).
Young infants seem biologically primed to focus on amodal information. Intermodal sensitivity is crucial for perceptual development. In the first few months, when much stimulation is unfamiliar and confusing, it enables babies to notice meaningful correlations between sensory inputs and rapidly make sense of their surroundings. Early parent–infant interaction presents the baby with a rich context—consisting of many concurrent sights, sounds, and touches—for expanding intermodal knowledge.