Development of Intermodal Perception of Social Events: Infancy to Childhood

描述(由申请人提供)：拟议的研究调查了社交活动的各个方面如何以及在什么条件下变得突出、被关注和被感知，以及这种变化如何从婴儿期到幼儿期的发展。特别是，这项建议探索了婴儿在单峰听觉、单峰视觉和多模式视听刺激中，通过心率、眼球跟踪和婴儿控制的视觉习惯化的融合测量，对面孔、声音和语音的波动性(节奏、节奏和强度)的感知的发展过程。我们将测试选择性注意模型(感觉间冗余假说)所产生的关于跨感官冗余在促进和组织注意、知觉的发展和学习多模式和单峰刺激中事件的不同属性方面的作用的预测。五个具体的目标系统地探索了促进和削弱关于语音的面孔、声音和波动性的学习的条件。通过在单一框架下研究多通道和单通道知觉，我们将为整合不同的文献提供基础，并揭示刺激通道(单通道、多通道)与注意事件属性(冗余指定与非冗余指定)之间的重要交互作用，这些特性在单独的研究设计中无法检测到。我们使用了一种新的融合测量组合：视觉习惯化和恢复揭示了婴儿检测到的视听语音事件的特性(人脸、声音、语音的波动性)，心率指数反映了加工的深度和效率，而眼动跟踪揭示了婴儿在不同条件下选择性地注意到的动态面孔的特征(冗余和非冗余)。通过包括不同分析水平的测量，对刺激数量和类型的关键控制，任务难度的操纵，以及重复暴露的影响，我们将揭示更多关于社交事件注意突显的性质、基础和过程，而不是通过单独的研究或单一测量来揭示的。对社会事件的选择性注意和学习模式与我们之前对非社会事件的研究一致，这表明一般的知觉过程支配着这一领域的注意和学习。我们的目标是推进注意力和知觉领域的发展理论，并建立婴儿对社会事件关键方面的感觉间和单峰信息的敏感度标准，这些信息可用于评估非典型发育模式，并可作为干预的基础。评估多模式条件还将提高生态有效性，并促进将研究结果转化为现实世界的学习环境。公共卫生相关性：这项研究将揭示婴幼儿在单模式视觉、单模式听觉和多模式视听刺激中对面孔、声音和言语的非模式方面(节奏、节奏、强度)的注意和感知的性质、基础和发展。关于在不同条件下对不同性质的社会事件的选择性注意的性质的视觉习惯化、心率和眼动跟踪的融合测量，将提供通常单独研究的过程的全面和综合的图景。这些发现将提供大量关于典型发育模式的关键信息，详细程度对于识别非典型发育模式是新颖和必要的，包括自闭症的社会注意力缺陷。研究结果很容易转化为现实世界的环境，并可作为干预发育迟缓的基础。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed research investigates how and under what conditions various aspects of social events become salient, attended, and perceived and how this changes across development from infancy through early childhood. In particular, this proposal explores the developmental course of infants' perception of faces, voices, and amodal properties of speech (tempo, rhythm, and intensity) in unimodal auditory, unimodal visual, and multimodal, audiovisual stimulation using convergent measures of heart rate, eye tracking, and infant controlled visual habituation. Predictions concerning the role of redundancy across the senses in promoting and organizing the development of attention, perception, and learning about different properties of events in multimodal and unimodal stimulation, generated from of our model of selective attention (the intersensory redundancy hypothesis) will be tested. Five specific aims systematically explore the conditions that facilitate versus attenuate learning about faces, voices, and amodal properties of speech. By investigating multimodal and unimodal perception under a single framework, we will provide a basis for integrating separate literatures and reveal important interactions between modality of stimulation (unimodal, multimodal) and attention to properties of events (redundantly versus nonredundantly specified) that cannot be detected in separate research designs. We use a novel combination of convergent measures: visual habituation and recovery reveal what properties of audiovisual speech events infants detect (faces, voices, amodal properties of speech), heart rate indexes the depth and efficiency of processing, and eye tracking reveals what features of dynamic faces infants selectively attend under different conditions (redundant vs nonredundant). By including measures across different levels of analysis, critical controls for amount and type of stimulation, manipulations of task difficulty, and effects of repeated exposure, we will reveal much more about the nature, basis, and processes underlying the attentional salience of social events than can be revealed by separate studies or single measures. Patterns of selective attention and learning about social events that converge with those of our prior studies of nonsocial events will suggest that general perceptual processes govern attention and learning in this domain. Our goals are to advance developmental theory in the area of attention and perception, and to establish norms for infant sensitivity to intersensory and unimodal information about critical aspects of social events that can be used for assessing atypical patterns of development and can serve as a basis for interventions. Assessing multimodal conditions will also enhance ecological validity and foster translation of findings to real world learning contexts. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This research will reveal new information about the nature, basis, and development of attention to and perception of faces, voices, and amodal aspects of speech (tempo, rhythm, intensity) in unimodal visual, unimodal auditory, and multimodal audiovisual stimulation in infants and young children. Convergent measures of visual habituation, heart rate, and eye tracking, about the nature of selective attention to different properties of social events under different conditions, will provide a comprehensive and integrated picture of processes usually studied separately. Findings will provide a wealth of critical information about typical developmental patterns at a level of detail that is novel and necessary for identifying atypical patterns of development, including social attention deficits characteristic of autism. Findings are easily translated to real world settings and can serve as a basis for interventions for developmental delays.