Multisensory Development

Abstract

Our daily perceptual experiences are, almost without exception, multisensory. We perceive the objects, events and people around us through a range of sensory modalities which convey overlapping and complementary streams of information about our environment and ourselves. A person's face, the sound of their voice, the way they touch us, and even their distinctive smell, contribute to our perception, recognition and understanding of them. In the last two decades we have witnessed dramatic progress in our understanding of how the mature adult brain integrates the information available to the different senses. However, despite the fact that adults are able to achieve multisensory integration in a seemingly effortless manner, developmental research has shown incontrovertibly that we cannot assume that the same is true for individuals who are at different stages of development, or who have had differing degrees or qualities of multisensory experience. This volume brings together the most recent research programmes from leading developmental scientists who have used a variety of methods to investigate questions concerning multisensory development. The various chapters address the development of a diverse range of cognitive and behavioural functions including classic questions about the multisensory perception of objects, people, language, but also issues which are just beginning to be addressed in detail, such as the development of multisensory interactions in flavour perception spatial navigation, and body representation. Crucially, this volume also tackles questions about how multisensory development comes about. This is achieved through a consideration of developmental processes throughout, and also through coverage of development across a wide range of groups.

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