Developmental changes in the visual-proprioceptive integration threshold of children

The ability to detect artificially induced visual-proprioceptive asynchrony reflects an awareness of the first-person experience of self-generated movement. The current study assessed children's (5- to 8-year-olds) and adults' ability to integrate asynchronous visual and proprioceptive stimulation by delaying the visual feedback of self-generated action in videos. Children and adults observed a monitor showing their movements of a joystick at varying delay durations and were then asked to make judgments on whether their movements appeared to be delayed or live. Children demonstrated age-related differences in their reporting of delay judgments across all delay conditions. Adults' performances on the same task exceeded those of children. The results of this study provide a mapping of visual-proprioceptive integration abilities in 5 to 8 year old children. The age-related increase in sensitivity to visual-proprioceptive asynchrony is suggestive of increasing sensitivity to the temporal properties of multisensory feedback of self-generated movement with development.