City Research Online

Abstract

This study examined the ability of older children to integrate spatial information across sequential observations of bandpass noise. In experiment I, twelve adults and twelve 8-14 yr olds localized 1-5 sounds, all presented at the same location along a 34° speaker array. Rate of gain in response precision (as a function of N observations) was used to measure integration efficiency. Children were no worse at localizing a single sound than adults, and - unexpectedly - were no less efficient at integrating information across observations. Experiment II repeated the task using a Reverse Correlation paradigm. The number of observations was fixed (N = 5), and the location of each sound was independently randomly jittered. Relative weights were computed for each observation interval. Distance from the ideal weight-vector was used to index integration efficiency. The data showed that children were significantly less efficient integrators than adults: only reaching adult-like performance by around 11 yrs. The developmental effect was small, however, relative to the amount of individual variability, with some younger children exhibiting greater efficiency than some adults. This work indicates that sensory integration continues to mature into late childhood, but that this development is relatively gradual.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Copyright 2018 Acoustical Society of America. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the Acoustical Society of America. The following article appeared in Jones, P. R. (2018). The development of perceptual averaging: Efficiency metrics in children and adults using a multiple-observation sound-localization task. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 144(1), pp. 228-241 and may be found at https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5043394.
Publisher Keywords:	integration efficiency, multiple observations, sound localization, reverse correlation
Subjects:	R Medicine > RE Ophthalmology R Medicine > RJ Pediatrics > RJ101 Child Health. Child health services
Departments:	School of Health & Psychological Sciences > Optometry & Visual Sciences
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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