Bayesian Causal Inference in Visuotactile Integration in Children and Adults

Autor/inn/en	Verhaar, Erik; Medendorp, Wijbrand Pieter; Hunnius, Sabine; Stapel, Janny C.
Titel	Bayesian Causal Inference in Visuotactile Integration in Children and Adults
Quelle	In: Developmental Science, 25 (2022) 3, (12 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Verhaar, Erik)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1467-7687
DOI	10.1111/desc.13184
Schlagwörter	Bayesian Statistics; Causal Models; Statistical Inference; Visual Perception; Tactual Perception; Sensory Integration; Children; Adults; Cues; Child Development + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Kausalanalyse; Inferential statistics; Schließende Statistik; Visuelle Wahrnehmung; Taktile Wahrnehmung; Sensorische Integration; Child; Kind; Kinder; Stichwort; Kindesentwicklung
Abstract	If cues from different sensory modalities share the same cause, their information can be integrated to improve perceptual precision. While it is well established that adults exploit sensory redundancy by integrating cues in a Bayes optimal fashion, whether children under 8 years of age combine sensory information in a similar fashion is still under debate. If children differ from adults in the way they infer causality between cues, this may explain mixed findings on the development of cue integration in earlier studies. Here we investigated the role of causal inference in the development of cue integration, by means of a visuotactile localization task. Young children (6-8 years), older children (9.5-12.5 years) and adults had to localize a tactile stimulus, which was presented to the forearm simultaneously with a visual stimulus at either the same or a different location. In all age groups, responses were systematically biased toward the position of the visual stimulus, but relatively more so when the distance between the visual and tactile stimulus was small rather than large. This pattern of results was better captured by a Bayesian causal inference model than by alternative models of forced fusion or full segregation of the two stimuli. Our results suggest that already from a young age the brain implicitly infers the probability that a tactile and a visual cue share the same cause and uses this probability as a weighting factor in visuotactile localization. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01