3-128 - Multisensory Integration in Action: Motor Development and Infants’ Developing Sense of Agency and Body Knowledge

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

When acting, we rely on noisy signals stemming from multiple sensory organs. Combining information from different modalities is a good strategy to achieve a reliable estimate of world states. However, the development of optimal cue combination takes up to late childhood (Nardini, Begus, & Mareschal, 2013). Here we discuss how infants combine multisensory information for action.

The first two talks address multisensory integration in motor development. Do infants rely on multiple cues when developing novel skills, and is skill proficiency associated with making better use of the different inputs from the senses? Work on staying in one (sitting and stance) as well as moving to another position (locomotion) will be discussed.

The last talk discusses multisensory integration in infants’ perception of their own body and self-produced action-effects. Body knowledge, which is essential for acting in the world, is acquired through combining sensory information. Studies on the early development of tactile-motor, visuomotor and audiomotor integration will show a progressive development in limb and body part differentiation. The integration of (audio)visual and motor signals enables infants to apply body knowledge to produce specific action effects, as movement-tracking data will demonstrate.

In sum, multisensory integration can support motor development, and vice versa, through actions, infants may become better in combining sensory information as movements allow them to be active predictors of sensory states. Active predictions can form the basis for the development of the sense of agency, turning infants into capable actors, aware of their own body configuration and their potential for action.

Sub Unit

• Perceptual, Sensory, Motor

Chair

• Janny Stapel, Uppsala University

Discussant

• Denis Mareschal, Birkbeck College

Individual Presentations

• Multisensory Information in Posture and Locomotion - Presenting Author: Mark A. Schmuckler, University of Toronto Scarborough

• Infants Use Vision and the Position Sense in Action Development - Presenting Author: Janny Stapel, Uppsala University; Kerstin Rosander, Uppsala University; Claes von Hofsten, Uppsala University

• Body Knowledge Acquisition: From Global to Local? - Presenting Author: Lisa Jacquey, Université Paris Descartes; J. Kevin O'Regan, Université Paris Descartes