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Development of visuo-auditory integration in space and time
Monica Gori1, Giulio Sandini, David Burr
1Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia Genoa, Italy.
Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience
|October 13, 2012
Summary
Children
Area of Science:
- Developmental psychology
- Multisensory integration
- Cross-modal perception
Background:
- Adults optimally integrate multisensory information, unlike young children who exhibit unisensory dominance.
- Audition typically dominates time perception, while vision dominates space perception.
- The cross-sensory calibration hypothesis suggests modalities calibrate each other.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate visual-auditory integration in space and time in children and adults.
- Test the cross-sensory calibration hypothesis in visual-auditory perception.
- Determine the developmental trajectory of multisensory integration.
Main Methods:
- Utilized child-friendly spatial and temporal bisection tasks.
- Measured unimodal and bimodal audio-visual thresholds and point of subjective equality (PSE).
- Compared empirical data with Bayesian predictions.
Main Results:
- Audition dominated temporal perception for both children and adults.
- Children under 12 showed visual dominance in spatial tasks, with higher-than-predicted bimodal thresholds.
- Optimal bimodal integration was only observed in adults.
Conclusions:
- Adult-like visual-auditory integration develops late, with significant developmental changes.
- Visual dominance in space and auditory dominance in time may reflect cross-sensory comparisons.
- Findings support the role of cross-sensory calibration in perceptual development.
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