Learning to combine sense and experience for optimal perceptual judgements

Lead Research Organisation: Birkbeck, University of London
Department Name: Psychological Sciences

Abstract

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Description Our key findings are that:
1. Children do not integrate multimodal spatial information to navigate until after age 8 years (output 1) - Nardini et al, Current Biology 2008
2. Children aged 4 to 12 years use prior assumptions of both "convexity" and "light-from-above" to interpret shape from shading, but the relative weighting for these changes during development - Thomas et al, Journal of Vision 2010
3. Children do not integrate texture and stereoscopic disparity to judge 3D shape until 12 years, but younger children's ability to keep these information sources separate allows them to make types of discriminations that adults cannot - Nardini et al, PNAS 2010
4. Children integrate visual and haptic information for pointing from 4 years, but do not do so using optimal weighting until later in childhood and adulthood (Nardini et al, JEP:HPP, in press, doi: 10.1037/a0030719)
5. Word learning is a multisensory (Audio-visual) learning episode in which infants attend first to optimally salient visual features and later to features optimally predictive of category membership as defined by accompanying label (Althaus & Mareschal, under review, Cognition; Althaus & Mareschal, in press, IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development).

Furher findings are described in tour original Impact report submitted and approved in 2012
Exploitation Route In 2012, the future findigns were: "The work on multisensory cue integration hs potential empact on educational practice and policy. This translational aspect is being investigated through 2 further grant proposals (one to the ESRC and one to the Leverhume Trust) exploring the value of, or difficulties in, using multisensory audio-visual materials in the classroom".
Sectors Creative Economy

Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software)

Education
 
Description In the Impact report submitted and approved in 2012 we wrote: This project has had societal impact primarily through Knowledge exchanges & public engagement. For example, the results were presented at an open day at the Children's Eye Centre in 2011, and a newsletter we have sent out (describing the eye tracking study). The outputs were also part of the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development newsletter sent out to over 1000 interested parents. Professor Mareschal appeared on the Radio 4 programme In Our Time in 2010, with an estimated audience of 2 million listeners world-wide. The 2008 and 2010 papers that appeard in Current Biology and PNAS was widely reported on including in Nature News, Der Spiegel, Cordis, Science Daily and half a dozen science correspondence blogs in the USA, the UK and abroad. These activities engage the general public with ESRC research and encourage them to rethink and reflect upon their own understanding and practice related to child development and learning.
First Year Of Impact 2012
Sector Education
Impact Types Societal
 
Description Marie Sklodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network: INTERLEARN
Amount € 2,100,000 (EUR)
Funding ID 721895 
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 08/2017 
End 08/2021
 
Description Marie Sklodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network: MOTION
Amount € 1,500,000 (EUR)
Organisation European Commission H2020 
Sector Public
Country Belgium
Start 01/2018 
End 12/2021