Co-development of face and speech processing in infancy

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The most important social stimuli infants encounter as soon as they are born are faces. Such faces not only move but also talk. The ability to process information from moving and talking faces lay the crucial foundation for typical development, whereas early inability to do so leads to cascading negative consequences (e.g., autism). Whereas researchers have extensively studied the development of face processing and that of speech processing in infancy, few have examined the interaction between the two. Building on our recent discoveries, the proposed program of research aims to bridge this significant gap in knowledge. We will examine systematically how infants' learning of face processing affects their learning of speech processing and vice versa, as well as the role of face and language experience in shaping such co-development. To this end, we will take a multi-method approach by using habituation-dishabituation, eye tracking, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy methodologies. We will assess the abilities to discriminate own- vs. other-race faces and native vs. non-native speech sounds in infants with differential exposures to the faces of different races and languages. This research will provide, for the first time, a systematic and multi-level set of data to link behavioural performance to visual scanning to neural activities in infants during face and speech processing. Our findings will bridge a significant gap in knowledge regarding the early co-development of face and speech perception at the behavioural and neural levels. They will elucidate the nature of developmental interaction between the two perceptual domains and the role of differential experiences in shaping early cross-modal development. Our research will also lay the foundation for future research to link early differential face and language experiences to later developments throughout childhood. Further, our research will provide normative data for understanding the atypical co-development of face and speech processing (e.g., autism).