Maturation of audiovisual simultaneity judgment.
Andrea R. Hillock, Albert R. Powers, Mark T. Wallace
Poster
Time: 2009-07-01 09:00 AM – 10:30 AM
Last modified: 2009-06-04
Abstract
Our world is inherently multisensory. Our ability to make assumptions about the relatedness of multisensory stimuli is largely based on their temporal and spatial relationships. Stimuli that are proximal in time and space are highly likely to be “bound� together by the brain and thus ascribed to a common external event. While the constraints to multisensory integration have been studied in human and animal models using both behavioral and physiological techniques, little is known about the temporal aspects of multisensory processing in children. Studies comparing behavioral responses of adults to gaze maintenance findings in infants have revealed developmental differences in the range of temporal asynchronies over which audiovisual stimuli are judged as simultaneous. Infants display a higher threshold for detecting interstimulus asynchrony; they bind more temporally disparate stimuli than adults (Lewkowicz, 1996). Previous research has also reported differences between children and adults in processing of coincident auditory-visual stimuli. However, age-related discrepancies in the temporal aspects of multisensory integration have not been investigated. In the current study, we compared behavioral responses of 10 and 11 year-old children to those of adults on a simultaneity judgment measure. Findings revealed differences in the temporal profiles of multisensory integration between younger and older groups. Children were more likely to report stimuli as simultaneous at moderate and long stimulus onset asynchronies (-150 to -450 ms) in conditions where the auditory stimulus preceded the visual cue. Results will provide an empirical foundation for a broader developmental study of the chronology of multisensory temporal processing.