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Updated: May 3, 2026

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
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Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization

Published on: April 19, 2017

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Early experience and multisensory perceptual narrowing

David J Lewkowicz1

  • 1Department of Psychology & Center for Complex Systems & Brain Sciences, Florida Atlantic University, 777 Glades Rd, Boca Raton, FL, 33431. lewkowic@fau.edu.

Developmental Psychobiology
|January 18, 2014
PubMed

Perceptual narrowing reflects the effects of early experience and contributes in key ways to perceptual and cognitive development. Previous studies have found that unisensory perceptual sensitivity in young infants is broadly tuned such that they can discriminate native as well as non-native sensory inputs but that it is more narrowly tuned in older infants such that they only respond to native inputs. Recently, my coworkers and I discovered that multisensory perceptual sensitivity narrows as well. The present article reviews this new evidence in the general context of multisensory perceptual development and the effects of early experience. Together, the evidence on unisensory and multisensory narrowing shows that early experience shapes the emergence of perceptual specialization and expertise.

Keywords:
early experienceinfantmultisensoryperceptual development

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