Fusion of visual cues is not mandatory in children.

ABSTRACT: Human adults can go beyond the limits of individual sensory systems' resolutions by integrating multiple estimates (e.g., vision and touch) to reduce uncertainty. Little is known about how this ability develops. Although some multisensory abilities are present from early infancy, it is not until age ≥8 y that children use multiple modalities to reduce sensory uncertainty. Here we show that uncertainty reduction by sensory integration does not emerge until 12 y even within the single modality of vision, in judgments of surface slant based on stereoscopic and texture information. However, adults' integration of sensory information comes at a cost of losing access to the individual estimates that feed into the integrated percept ("sensory fusion"). By contrast, 6-y-olds do not experience fusi

SUBMITTER: Nardini M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2947870 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature