The development of attentional control mechanisms in multisensory environments

Turoman, Nora; Tivadar, Ruxandra I.; Retsa, Chrysa; Maillard, Anne M.; Scerif, Gaia; Matusz, Pawel J. (2021). The development of attentional control mechanisms in multisensory environments. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 48, p. 100930. Elsevier 10.1016/j.dcn.2021.100930

Preview

Text 1-s2.0-S1878929321000219-main.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons: Attribution (CC-BY). Download (4MB) | Preview

Outside the laboratory, people need to pay attention to relevant objects that are typically multisensory, but it remains poorly understood how the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms develop. We investigated when adult-like mechanisms controlling one’s attentional selection of visual and multisensory objects emerge across childhood. Five-, 7-, and 9-year-olds were compared with adults in their performance on a computer game-like multisensory spatial cueing task, while 129-channel EEG was simultaneously recorded. Markers of attentional control were behavioural spatial cueing effects and the N2pc ERP component (analysed traditionally and using a multivariate electrical neuroimaging framework). In behaviour, adult-like visual attentional control was present from age 7 onwards, whereas multisensory control was absent in all children groups. In EEG, multivariate analyses of the activity over the N2pc time-window revealed stable brain activity patterns in children. Adult-like visual-attentional control EEG patterns were present age 7 onwards, while multisensory control activity patterns were found in 9-year-olds (albeit behavioural measures showed no effects). By combining rigorous yet naturalistic paradigms with multivariate signal analyses, we demonstrated that visual attentional control seems to reach an adult-like state at ∼7 years, before adult-like multisensory control, emerging at ∼9 years. These results enrich our understanding of how attention in naturalistic settings develops.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

78 since deposited on 09 Apr 2021
20 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item