A study on the development of multisensory perception in infants using functional near-infrared spectroscopy

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16H07207
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Experimental psychology
• Research Institution: Chuo University
• Principal Investigator: Ujiie Yuta 中央大学, 研究開発機構, 助教 (60781789)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-08-26 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 視聴覚統合 / NIRS / 音声言語 / 物体認識 / 質感

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Adults experience a strong association between auditory and visual information, which works well to judge what an object is or to understand what another person says. It is believed that this adaptive function develops from birth and its neural basis is formed during infancy. However, the specifics of when and how the neural basis is developed remain unclear. This project examined the question of when we acquire the neural representation for processing audiovisual speech and objects’ information. Our results show that the association between visual and auditory material property is developed during the first half year of life. Our findings suggest that the association of audiovisual speech information is acquired at around 8 months. Furthermore, we found that individual differences in audiovisual speech perception is related to autism-like traits among people at ages in which they had already acquired the association between auditory and visual information.

Free Research Field

実験心理学