Moderated versus unmoderated remote audiovisual speech perception tasks in children

Abstract

Virtual adaptations for auditory/audiovisual research have received relatively little attention, especially considering developmental work. The recent pandemic provided opportunities to explore different aspects of remote behavioral testing, ranging from adapting the types of stimuli used, to adjusting the methods of behavioral assessment. When working with children online, an additional consideration is the experimenter’s use of moderation, which may also influence the results. Our lab evaluated an online audiovisual speech perception task in 6–7-year-old children, in sessions that were moderated (N = 37) and unmoderated (N = 47) by an experimenter. Differences in performance show the importance of choice of behavioral measures when performing virtual audiovisual research. Additionally, we found differences in attention, drop-out rate, and the number of unusable results. We found that both types of virtual assessments can be used with sufficient considerations taken into account, but the differences in testing procedures should be explicitly stated to facilitate cross-study comparisons. Both moderated and unmoderated remote testing setups have their particular benefits depending on the research question, caregiver involvement, and requirements for sustained attention.