Developmental Changes of Audio-Visual Integration: A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

The study aimed to evaluate the developmental changes of audio-visual integration using McGurk phenomenon and the integration of voicing cue in. normal hearing Kannada speaking participants. One hundred and fifty participants, age ranging from 6 years to 20 years were chosen for the study and were divided into six groups (25 participants in each group) based on age. Auditory and visual recording of six stop consonants in combination with vowel la/ was done and stimuli were prepared for four conditions: audio only (AO); visual only (VO); audiovisual congruent (AV+); and audio-visual incongruent- for studying McGurk effect and audio-visual integration of voicing cue. Two way MANOVA and test of equality were used for analysis of data. Results revealed that all. groups performed equally in AO condition. In VO condition, better responses were observed in 6 or 7. 11 year olds and 16 to 20 year olds. Audio-visual congruent condition resulted in 100% correct response by all the age groups. In McGurk task, 8 to 9. 11 year olds performed poorly. There was no significant difference between the performance of 6 to 7.1 1 year old children and of 9 years or older. It can be concluded that the developmental changes of audio-visual integration of Indian children are different from the developmental changes reported in western studies. The assessment of phonology, reading and writing skills of the children whilst looking into the audio-visual integration will give better insight about the process. It can also be concluded that it is important to study the female and male participants separately and, also, to have a task which is more demanding such as testing in the presence of noise.