INTERMODAL TEMPORAL INFORMATION PROCESSING IN INFANTS

大多数知觉、认知、情感和语言事件在不同的感觉模式中同时被指定，并随时间分布。时间及其各种时间属性，如连续度、持续时间、速度和节奏结构，可以在不同的模态中表现得同样好，从而为多模态表征的事件和对象的异模态属性的整合提供了主要基础。经验证据表明，人类婴儿可以感知这些多模态时间属性中的一些，并可以利用它们来整合异模态输入。事实上，这种能力似乎是一种广义知觉机制的一部分，这种机制通过将婴儿的注意力集中在模态间时间整合的事件上来限制知觉。考虑到跨模态整合事件是婴儿日常经验的基本组成部分，理解这些能力发展背后的过程至关重要。最近，PI提出了一个顺序的、层次的模型，为研究多式联运时间关系的响应性发展提供了一个理论框架。该模型提出，由于四种不同的时间多式联运关系的信息复杂性不同，对多式联运时间连续性、持续时间、速率和节奏的响应性依次出现。此外，对更复杂的多式联运时间关系的反应的分化和出现取决于对更简单关系的反应的优先出现。本项目旨在通过研究1 - 12月龄婴儿对多模态时间连续性、持续时间、频率和节奏的反应性，对婴儿对多模态时间关系的反应性发展进行系统的调查。习惯化/测试技术，连同注意的措施，将被用来调查婴儿对四种类型的多式联运时间关系的反应的发育差异。在PI模型及其扩展的基础上，提出了一系列18个实验来检验由模型及其扩展产生的各种预测。研究结果将：(a)阐明对多模态时间关系反应性的预期发育变化的机制，(b)增加我们对使婴儿学习其经验的心理统一性的过程的发展的理解，(c)帮助进一步发展和完善知觉功能的测量，这些测量已经被证明在检测异常发育结果方面具有诊断效用。

Most perceptual, cognitive, affective, and linguistic events are specified concurrently in different sensory modalities and are distributed across time. Time and its various temporal attributes such as contiguity, duration, rate, and rhythmic structure can be represented equally well across modalities and thus provide a major basis for the integration of the heteromodal attributes of multimodally represented events and objects. Empirical evidence indicates that human infants can perceive some of these intermodal temporal attributes and can use them to integrate heteromodal inputs. Indeed, it seems that this ability is part of a generalized perceptual mechanism that constrains perception by focusing the infant's attention on intermodally temporally integrated events. Given that intermodally integrated events are a fundamental part of the infant's everyday experience, understanding the processes underlying the development of such abilities is critical. Recently the PI put forth a sequential, hierarchic model that provides a theoretical framework for the study of the development of responsiveness to intermodal temporal relations. The model proposes that due to the differential informational complexity of the four different temporal intermodal relations, responsiveness to intermodal temporal contiguity, duration, rate, and rhythm emerges sequentially in that order. Furthermore, the differentiation and emergence of responsiveness to the more complex intermodal temporal relations is dependent on the prior emergence of responsiveness to the simpler relations. The purpose of the current project is to carry out a systematic investigation of the development of infants' responsiveness to intermodal temporal relations by studying responsiveness to intermodal temporal contiguity, duration, rate, and rhythm in infants between 1 and 12 months of age. The habituation/test technique, together with measures of attention, will be used to investigate developmental differences in infants' responsiveness to each of the four types of intermodal temporal relations. Based on the PI's model and its extensions, a series of 18 experiments is proposed to test various predictions arising from the model and its extensions. The results will: (a) explicate mechanisms underlying the anticipated developmental changes in responsiveness to intermodal temporal relations, (b) add to our understanding of the development of a process that enables infants to learn about the psychological unity of their experience, and (c) help further develop and refine measures of perceptual functioning that already have proved to have diagnostic utility in detecting aberrant developmental outcomes.