Abstract
The use of visual cues during the processing of audiovisual (AV) speech is known to be less efficient in children and adults with language difficulties and difficulties are known to be more prevalent in children from low-income populations. In the present study, we followed an economically diverse group of thirty-seven infants longitudinally from 6–9 months to 14–16 months of age. We used eye-tracking to examine whether individual differences in visual attention during AV processing of speech in 6–9 month old infants, particularly when processing congruent and incongruent auditory and visual speech cues, might be indicative of their later language development. Twenty-two of these 6–9 month old infants also participated in an event-related potential (ERP) AV task within the same experimental session. Language development was then followed-up at the age of 14–16 months, using two measures of language development, the Preschool Language Scale and the Oxford Communicative Development Inventory. The results show that those infants who were less efficient in auditory speech processing at the age of 6–9 months had lower receptive language scores at 14–16 months. A correlational analysis revealed that the pattern of face scanning and ERP responses to audiovisually incongruent stimuli at 6–9 months were both significantly associated with language development at 14–16 months. These findings add to the understanding of individual differences in neural signatures of AV processing and associated looking behavior in infants.
Highlights
Visual speech cues are known to facilitate speech comprehension when auditory input is ambiguous, for example in a noisy environment, with the shape of the mouth partially indicating the sounds produced (Sumby and Pollack, 1954)
Pearson correlations were computed in order to determine whether neural or behavioral signatures of AV processing at 6– 9 months, the processing of a mismatch between auditory and visual speech cues, is associated with language outcome at 14–16 months of age
These factors are known to contribute to individual differences in language outcomes, and we wanted to examine how well early AVSI responses can predict language outcomes, having controlled for these potential mediating variables
Summary
Visual speech cues are known to facilitate speech comprehension when auditory input is ambiguous, for example in a noisy environment, with the shape of the mouth partially indicating the sounds produced (Sumby and Pollack, 1954). A method for assessing capacities for audiovisual (AV) speech integration (AVSI) in adults and infants is to present simple video clips of people pronouncing syllables (/ba/ or /ga/) including clips where the visual and auditory speech components of the stimuli do not match (Kushnerenko et al, 2008). In these nonmatching circumstances the fusion and the combination speech illusions may be perceived, a phenomenon known as the McGurk effect (McGurk and MacDonald, 1976). On the other hand a visual /ba/ dubbed onto auditory /ga/ (VbaAga) is often perceived as the combination /bga/
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