Do infants represent human actions cross-modally? An ERP visual-auditory priming study

TY - JOUR

T1 - Do infants represent human actions cross-modally? An ERP visual-auditory priming study

AU - Geangu, Elena

AU - Roberti, Elisa

AU - Turati, Chiara

N1 - © 2021 Elsevier B.V. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy.

PY - 2021/3/1

Y1 - 2021/3/1

N2 - Recent findings indicate that 7-months-old infants perceive and represent the sounds inherent to moving human bodies. However, it is not known whether infants integrate auditory and visual information in representations of specific human actions. To address this issue, we used ERPs to investigate infants’ neural sensitivity to the correspondence between sounds and images of human actions. In a cross-modal priming paradigm, 7-months-olds were presented with the sounds generated by two types of human body movement, walking and handclapping, after watching the kinematics of those actions in either a congruent or incongruent manner. ERPs recorded from frontal, central and parietal electrodes in response to action sounds indicate that 7-months-old infants perceptually link the visual and auditory cues of human actions. However, at this age, these percepts do not seem to be integrated in cognitive multimodal representations of human actions.

AB - Recent findings indicate that 7-months-old infants perceive and represent the sounds inherent to moving human bodies. However, it is not known whether infants integrate auditory and visual information in representations of specific human actions. To address this issue, we used ERPs to investigate infants’ neural sensitivity to the correspondence between sounds and images of human actions. In a cross-modal priming paradigm, 7-months-olds were presented with the sounds generated by two types of human body movement, walking and handclapping, after watching the kinematics of those actions in either a congruent or incongruent manner. ERPs recorded from frontal, central and parietal electrodes in response to action sounds indicate that 7-months-old infants perceptually link the visual and auditory cues of human actions. However, at this age, these percepts do not seem to be integrated in cognitive multimodal representations of human actions.

KW - infancy

KW - multisensory

KW - auditory

KW - human action

KW - visual

KW - ERPs

U2 - 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2021.108047

DO - 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2021.108047

M3 - Article

SN - 0301-0511

VL - 160

JO - Biological psychology

JF - Biological psychology

M1 - 108047

ER -