The Development of Auditory Temporal Acuity in Children

Irwin, R. John; Ball, Ann K. R.; Kay, Ngaire; Stillman, Jennifer A.; Rosser, Jeremy

doi:10.2307/1129751

Cited by 97 publications

(31 citation statements)

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“…The absolute magnitude of the temporal resolution in children estimated in the present study and Bishop et al [19] is considerably larger (between 50 and 200 ms) than with previous estimates using behavioral gap detection tasks (between 3 and 40 ms) [4-6,26,27]. In adults, the elicitation of the P1-N1-P2 complex has been shown to relate to behaviorally determined gap detection thresholds, with attenuation of the response to the second tone when presented at subthreshold gap durations [28].…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 73%

Maturation of auditory temporal integration and inhibition assessed with event-related potentials (ERPs)

et al. 2010

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BackgroundWe examined development of auditory temporal integration and inhibition by assessing electrophysiological responses to tone pairs separated by interstimulus intervals (ISIs) of 25, 50, 100, 200, 400, and 800 ms in 28 children aged 7 to 9 years, and 15 adults.ResultsIn adults a distinct neural response was elicited to tones presented at ISIs of 25 ms or longer, whereas in children this was only seen in response to tones presented at ISIs above 100 ms. In adults, late N1 amplitude was larger for the second tone of the tone pair when separated by ISIs as short as 100 ms, consistent with the perceptual integration of successive stimuli within the temporal window of integration. In contrast, children showed enhanced negativity only when tone pairs were separated by ISIs of 200 ms. In children, the amplitude of the P1 component was attenuated at ISIs below 200 ms, consistent with a refractory process.ConclusionsThese results indicate that adults integrate sequential auditory information into smaller temporal segments than children. These results suggest that there are marked maturational changes from childhood to adulthood in the perceptual processes underpinning the grouping of incoming auditory sensory information, and that electrophysiological measures provide a sensitive, non-invasive method allowing further examination of these changes.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 73%

Maturation of auditory temporal integration and inhibition assessed with event-related potentials (ERPs)

et al. 2010

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“…The lack of significant differences between groups for the control trials (e.g., one-flash/one-beep) indicates that the difference in the temporal window size between groups is unlikely to be due to differences in response bias. While the tendency to report one flash in the two-flashes/zero-beeps condition across both children with ASD and TD suggests that visual temporal acuity may be lower in children relative to adults (Irwin et al 1985; Hautus et al 2003; Smith et al 2006), the lack of differences between groups suggests that developmental differences in visual temporal acuity do not play a role in the highlighted perceptual differences between children with and without ASD. Although our results are in accord with a previous study showing intact integration of low-level visual and auditory stimuli in individuals with ASD (i.e., that integration of multisensory information does occur) (Van der Smagt et al 2007), we have refined our understanding by showing for the first time alterations in the temporal constraints within which audiovisual stimuli are bound in children with ASD.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An extended multisensory temporal binding window in autism spectrum disorders

et al. 2010

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Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) form a continuum of neurodevelopmental disorders, characterized by deficits in communication and reciprocal social interaction, as well as by repetitive behaviors and restricted interests. Sensory disturbances are also frequently reported in clinical and autobiographical accounts. However, surprisingly few empirical studies have characterized the fundamental features of sensory and multisensory processing in ASD. The current study is structured to test for potential differences in multisensory temporal function in ASD by making use of a temporally dependent, low-level multisensory illusion. In this illusion, the presentation of a single flash of light accompanied by multiple sounds often results in the illusory perception of multiple flashes. By systematically varying the temporal structure of the audiovisual stimuli, a “temporal window” within which these stimuli are likely to be bound into a single perceptual entity can be defined. The results of this study revealed that children with ASD report the flash-beep illusion over an extended range of stimulus onset asynchronies relative to children with typical development, suggesting that children with ASD have altered multisensory temporal function. These findings provide valuable new insights into our understanding of sensory processing in ASD and may hold promise for the development of more sensitive diagnostic measures and improved remediation strategies.

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“…As mentioned earlier, several studies have suggested that some auditory tasks, such as frequency discrimination , discrimination of auditory spectra (Allen & Wightman, 1992), discrimination of low frequency tones (Maxon & Hochberg, 1982) and intensity coding (Buss, Hall & Grose, 2006), require several years to become adult-like. More relevant for our task is that children have poorer auditory temporal skills than adults (Wightman, Allen, Dolan, Kistler & Jamieson, 1989) and various psychophysical tasks suggest that their ability to distinguish rapidly presented auditory inputs continues to develop until early adolescence (Gori, Sandini & Burr, 2012;Hall & Grose, 1994;Hartley, Wright, Hogan & Moore, 2000;Irwin, Ball, Kay, Stillman & Rosser, 1985;Walker, Hall, Klein & Phillips, 2006). Experimental evidence suggests that motor coordination also develops late (Jansen-Osmann, Richter, Konczak & Kalveram, 2002;Konczak, Borutta, Topka & Dichgans, 1995;Konczak & Dichgans, 1997;von Hofsten, 1991).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children do not recalibrate motor‐sensory temporal order after exposure to delayed sensory feedback

Vercillo

Burr

Sandini

et al. 2014

Developmental Science

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Prolonged adaptation to delayed sensory feedback to a simple motor act (such as pressing a key) causes recalibration of sensory-motor synchronization, so instantaneous feedback appears to precede the motor act that caused it (Stetson, Cui, Montague & Eagleman, 2006). We investigated whether similar recalibration occurs in school-age children. Although plasticity may be expected to be even greater in children than in adults, we found no evidence of recalibration in children aged 8-11 years. Subjects adapted to delayed feedback for 100 trials, intermittently pressing a key that caused a tone to sound after a 200 ms delay. During the test phase, subjects responded to a visual cue by pressing a key, which triggered a tone to be played at variable intervals before or after the keypress. Subjects judged whether the tone preceded or followed the keypress, yielding psychometric functions estimating the delay when they perceived the tone to be synchronous with the action. The psychometric functions also gave an estimate of the precision of the temporal order judgment. In agreement with previous studies, adaptation caused a shift in perceived synchrony in adults, so the keypress appeared to trail behind the auditory feedback, implying sensory-motor recalibration. However, school children of 8 to 11 years showed no measureable adaptation of perceived simultaneity, even after adaptation with 500 ms lags. Importantly, precision in the simultaneity task also improved with age, and this developmental trend correlated strongly with the magnitude of recalibration. This suggests that lack of recalibration of sensory-motor simultaneity after adaptation in school-age children is related to their poor precision in temporal order judgments. To test this idea we measured recalibration in adult subjects with auditory noise added to the stimuli (which hampered temporal precision). Under these conditions, recalibration was greatly reduced, with the magnitude of recalibration strongly correlating with temporal precision.

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The Development of Auditory Temporal Acuity in Children

Cited by 97 publications

References 0 publications

Maturation of auditory temporal integration and inhibition assessed with event-related potentials (ERPs)

Maturation of auditory temporal integration and inhibition assessed with event-related potentials (ERPs)

An extended multisensory temporal binding window in autism spectrum disorders

Children do not recalibrate motor‐sensory temporal order after exposure to delayed sensory feedback

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