Surface textures play a critical role in shaping interaction with tangible and multisensory technologies, yet little is known about how their microstructural features influence cognitive and affective responses - factors central to interface design. We investigated this through cross-sensory correspondences of textures systematically varying in roundness and size. Thirty participants explored 3D-printed textures under visuo-tactile and tactile-only conditions, rating them on visuo-linguistic association, roughness, colour, and emotion. Rounded textures were often linked with Bouba and pleasantness, whereas pointed textures were associated with Kiki, higher arousal, and warmer colours. Visual access also influenced exploratory behaviour, reflected in applied normal force. These findings demonstrate how microstructural tactile cues shape cross-sensory and affective associations. We propose cross-sensory correspondences as a methodological framework for designing microstructural features of surfaces textures, which could open up new design opportunities for pseudo-haptic feedback, texture-rich tangible interfaces, and coherent multisensory experiences in VR/AR.

How can we leverage taste expectations to create novel food-based experiences for children? Eating is an embodied process that engages multiple senses. Cross-sensory correspondences may offer educational and recreational opportunities to design interactive applications that encourage diversifying encounters with food. We present a study with 64 children (ages 10–11) who explored eight textured materials hidden inside mystery “food” boxes and reported both their expected tastes and willingness to eat. Our findings provide evidence of touch–taste cross-sensory correspondences in children – sweetness with weak-hard-brittle and strong-soft-brittle materials, and saltiness with a weak-soft brittle material – and how these mappings influenced children’s openness to unknown foods. These results provide empirical grounding for cross-sensory interaction design with children, demonstrating how texture could scaffold curiosity and learning. We outline design implications for cross-sensory food interfaces, non-edible public exhibits, and playful educational technologies that could broaden eating experiences and enable new forms of virtual food interaction.

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.

Metaphors improve communication between children and adults, which can be challenging due to differences in experiences. Cross-sensory metaphors convey qualities associated with one sense using terms from another, e.g. a “sharp smell'' and could thus improve generational communication by bridging differences in sensory cognition. We observed children (8-11yrs, n=65), young adults (18-24yrs, n=51) and older adults (60-85yrs, n=38) playing Sense-O-Nary, a variation of Pictionary where players construct and interpret cross-sensory metaphors, and analysed differences in metaphor type, degree of elaboration, and association strategies. We found that children relied on ``familiar experiences'' for metaphor construction, while adults used more diverse association strategies. Degree of elaboration was consistent across ages for tactile and visual stimuli but differed for olfactory stimuli. All groups used ``active'' metaphors most commonly, but children showed more use of ``implicit'', ``similes'', and ``personification''. We present designs that demonstrate how these characterisations could be leveraged to improve intergenerational communication.

Metaphors enrich language by allowing us to express complex ideas through familiar concepts, enhancing both understanding and creativity in communication. Crossmodal metaphors are metaphors where one sensory modality is understood in terms of another (e.g, a sharp smell). Crossmodality is an integral part of how we make sense of and create meaning about the world. However, there is a lack of research on how children generate crossmodal metaphors and the interpretation of such metaphors. We present Sense-O-Nary, a game we designed to explore how children react when asked to create crossmodal metaphors in a novel environment. Children are presented with one sensory input and then asked to describe it using a different sense, for another team to guess what the original sensory input is. We engaged children (n=65, aged 8-10) to play this crossmodal metaphor generation game. We qualitatively analysed children’s exchange of crossmodal metaphors to define a set of crossmodal association strategies and then use this to categorise the metaphors they created. We discuss how engaging with crossmodal metaphors can enhance children’s linguistic development and how our findings can inform the design of interactions that involve multiple senses.