1st Edition

The Development of Intersensory Perception Comparative Perspectives

Edited By David J. Lewkowicz, Robert Lickliter Copyright 1995
    454 Pages
    by Psychology Press

    454 Pages
    by Psychology Press

    This book provides the latest information about the development of intersensory perception -- a topic which has recently begun to receive a great deal of attention from researchers studying the general problem of perceptual development. This interest was inspired after the realization that unimodal perception of sensory information is only the first stage of perceptual processing. Under normal conditions, an organism is faced with multiple, multisensory sources of information and its task is to either select a single relevant source of information or select several sources of information and integrate them. In general, perception and action on the basis of multiple sources of information is more efficient and effective. Before greater efficiency and effectiveness can be achieved, however, the organism must be able to integrate the multiple sources of information. By doing so, the organism can then achieve a coherent and unified percept of the world.

    The various chapters in this book examine the developmental origins of intersensory perceptual capacities by presenting the latest research on the development of intersensory perceptual skills in a variety of different species. By adopting a comparative approach to this problem, this volume as a whole helps uncover similarities as well as differences in the mechanisms underlying the development of intersensory integration. In addition, it shows that there is no longer any doubt that intersensory interactions occur right from the beginning of the developmental process, that the nature of these intersensory interactions changes as development progresses, and that early experience contributes in important ways to these changes.

    Contents: L.B. Smith, Foreword. Part I:Conceptual Issues. G. Turkewitz, Sources of Order for Intersensory Functioning. E.W. Bushnell, A Dual-Processing Approach to Cross-Modal Matching: Implications for Development. A. Walker-Andrews, Taxonomy for Intermodal Relations. Part II:Effects of Early Experience and Neural Mechanisms in Animals. R. Lickliter, H. Banker, Prenatal Components of Intersensory Development in Precocial Birds. B.E. Stein, M.A. Meredith, M.T. Wallace, Development and Neural Basis of Multisensory Integration. R.C. Tees, Early Stimulation History, the Cortex, and Intersensory Functioning in Infrahumans: Space and Time. N.E. Spear, D.L. McKinzie, Intersensory Integration in the Infant Rat. Part III:Intersensory Interactions in Human Development. D.J. Lewkowicz, Development of Intersensory Perception in Human Infants. L.E. Bahrick, J.N. Pickens, Amodal Relations: The Basis for Intermodal Perception and Learning in Infancy. B.A. Morrongiello, Effects of Colocation on Auditory-Visual Interactions and Cross-Modal Perception in Infants. S.A. Rose, From Hand to Eye: Findings and Issues in Infant Cross-Modal Transfer. A. Streri, M. Molina, Constraints on Intermodal Transfer Between Touch and Vision in Infancy. H. Bloch, Intermodal Participation in the Formation of Action in the Infant. A.N. Meltzoff, P.K. Kuhl, Faces and Speech: Intermodal Processing of Biologically Relevant Signals in Infants and Adults. D.W. Massaro, Bimodal Speech Perception Across the Life Span. Part IV:Future Directions. D.J. Lewkowicz, R. Lickliter, Insights into Mechanisms of Intersensory Development: The Value of a Comparative, Convergent-Operations Approach.

    Biography

    David J. Lewkowicz, Robert Lickliter

    "...this book fills a gap in the perceptual development literature, and likely will be widely read and referred to by those interested in perceptual development."
    Child Development Abstracts & Bibliography