Developmental Changes in Sensitivity to Spatial and Temporal Properties of Sensory Integration Underlying  Body Representation

Source:Page Count 18The closer in time and space that two or more stimuli are presented, the more likely it is that they will be integrated together. A recent study by Hillock-Dunn and Wallace (2012) reported that the size of the visuo-auditory temporal binding window — the interval within which visual and auditory inputs are highly likely to be integrated — narrows over childhood. However, few studies have investigated how sensitivity to temporal and spatial properties of multisensory integration underlying body representation develops in children. This is n ot only important for sensory processes but has also been argued to underpin social processes such as empathy and imitation (Schütz-Bosbachet al., 2006). We tested 4 to 11 year-olds ’ ability to detect a spatial discrepancy between visual and proprioceptive inputs (Experiment One) and a temporal discrepancy between visual and tactile inputs (Experiment Two) for hand representation. The likelihood that children integrated spatially separated visuo-proprioceptive information, a nd temporally asynchronous visuo-tactile information, decreased significantly with age. This suggests that spatial and temporal rules governing the occurrence of multisensory integration underlying body representation are refined with age in typical development.
Source: Multisensory research - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Source Type: research