Abstract
Sensory integration and the ability to discriminate target objects from distractors are critical to survival, yet the developmental trajectories of these abilities are unknown. This study investigated developmental changes in 9- (n = 18) and 11-year-old (n = 20) children, adolescents (n = 19) and adults (n = 22) using an audiovisual object discrimination task with uni- and multisensory distractors. Reaction times (RTs) were slower with visual/audiovisual distractors, and although all groups demonstrated facilitation of multisensory RTs in these conditions, children's and adolescents' responses corresponded to fewer race model violations than adults', suggesting protracted maturation of multisensory processes. Multisensory facilitation could not be explained by changes in RT variability, suggesting that tests of race model violations may still have theoretical value at least for familiar multisensory stimuli.
Highlights
Successful interaction with the environment requires individuals to discriminate relevant sensory signals from “noise.” To be safe, a child often needs to be able to rapidly identify his/her mother in a crowded shop or seek out a teammate in a schoolyard soccer game
Multisensory facilitation could not be explained by changes in Reaction times (RTs) variability, suggesting that tests of race model violations may still have theoretical value at least for familiar multisensory stimuli
Our results extend the observation of developmental effects in multisensory processing to the recognition of common meaningful objects with auditory, visual and audiovisual distractors
Summary
Successful interaction with the environment requires individuals to discriminate relevant sensory signals from “noise.” To be safe, a child often needs to be able to rapidly identify his/her mother in a crowded shop or seek out a teammate in a schoolyard soccer game. Multisensory information can enhance information processing in both adults and children (for reviews see e.g., Calvert et al, 2004; Bremner et al, 2012). The developmental trajectory of multisensory object processing in audiovisually distracting environments has not been reported, though it is of significant evolutionary relevance and has important implications for cognitive development (e.g., Johnson and Mareschal, 2001; Bremner and Spence, 2008; Barutchu et al, 2011). Some aspects of multisensory processing speed and accuracy improve very early with age (e.g., Neil et al, 2006), while others remain immature throughout childhood across a variety of sensory modalities and tasks (e.g., Gori et al, 2008; Nardini et al, 2008, 2013; Barutchu et al, 2009; Maidment et al, 2014; Petrini et al, 2014; Baart et al, 2015). Stable adult levels of multisensory facilitation have been first reported in early adolescence (Brandwein et al, 2011), when multisensory reaction times (RTs) are reliably faster than would be predicted by parallel competing sensory systems (i.e., race models)
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