Audiovisual integration in 4-and 5-year-old children: Behavioural and neural responses
Date
2020-01
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Abstract
Dynamic information in the environment often stems from multiple modalities, such as auditory and visual (audiovisual; AV). The ability to detect and integrate AV information draws attention to salient information, allows for efficient processing, and helps individuals learn sound-object associations, which can impact language development. In this dissertation, I explore stimulus characteristics that affect how AV information is integrated and processed in 4-and 5-year-olds and the relation to their receptive language (RL). In Chapter 2, I examine whether 4-and 5-year-old’s integrate AV stimuli resulting in faster and more accurately responses to matched AV compared to mismatched AV and unisensory stimuli. This was the case. I further hypothesized that responses to matching AV stimuli would predict children’s RL, which was not supported. Moreover, I hypothesized that children’s executive functioning would predict responses to mismatched stimuli, which was the case. Thus, children integrate AV information and their broader skills impact how quickly and effectively they respond to information in their environment. In Chapter 3, I use EEG to investigate 4-and 5-year-old’s processing of AV synchronous/ asynchronous human/ monkey videos. I found increased processing for mouth movements paired with vocalizations (i.e., synchronous), compared to mouth movements alone, and for auditory human, compared to monkey, vocalizations. Synchrony and species affected AV processing differently based on the modality (i.e., auditory or visual) being examined. In Chapter 4, I expand on the work in Chapter 3 to examine whether children’s neural responses are related to their RL. Here I found that 4-year-old’s processing of visual synchronous and 666ms asynchronous stimuli were related to their RL. However, no significant relation was found for the 5-year-olds. For both ages, reduced processing for auditory stimuli, iii regardless of synchrony and species, was related to higher RL. This may suggest that children who reduce processing to nonsense vocalization have more cognitive resources to process meaningful information and had higher RL. I conclude by discussing the importance of understanding the nuances of AV integration and processing in early childhood as these foundational skills are related to their development. This provides a base for future research to explore AV integration in atypical development.
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Keywords
audiovisual integration, EEG, conspecifics
Citation
Beatch, J. A. (2020). Audiovisual integration in 4-and 5-year-old children: Behavioural and neural responses (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.