Selective attention is the gateway to perceptual processing, learning, and memory and is a skill honed through extensive experience. However, little research has focused on how selective attention develops. Here, we synthesize established and new findings from studies assessing the central role of redundancy across the senses in guiding and constraining this process in infancy and early childhood. We highlight research demonstrating the dual role of intersensory redundancy—its facilitating and interfering effects—in the detection and perceptual processing of various properties of objects and events.
BahrickL. E. (2010). (See References). A review chapter that describes the role of intersensory processing in typical and atypical perceptual and social development.
2.
BremnerA. J.LewkowiczD. J.SpenceC. (2012). (See References). An edited volume providing a comprehensive overview of the development of multisensory perception.
3.
ColomboJ.BrezC.CurtindaleL. (2012). Infant perception and cognition. In WeinerI. B. (Ed.), Handbook of psychology: Developmental psychology (Vol. 6, pp. 61–89). New York, NY: Wiley Blackwell. A chapter that provides a general overview of the field of infant perceptual and cognitive development.
4.
HollichG.GogateL. H. (2010). Invariance detection with an interactive system: A perceptual gateway to language development. Psychological Review, 117, 496–516. An article explaining a theory of the key role of multisensory contributions to early language development.
5.
AdolphK. E.BergerS. E. (2005). Physical and motor development. In BornsteinM. H.LambM. E. (Eds.), Developmental science: An advanced textbook (5th ed., pp. 223–281). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
6.
BahrickL. E. (2010). Intermodal perception and selective attention to intersensory redundancy: Implications for typical social development and autism. In BremnerG.WachsT. D. (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of infant development (2nd ed., pp. 120–166). Oxford, England: Wiley/Blackwell.
7.
BahrickL. E.CastellanosI.FrameE. A.ToddJ. T.CampezM.Krogh-JespersenS. (2013, April). Selective looking by young children: A new test of sensitivity to intersensory redundancy during competing visual stimulation. Poster presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Seattle, WA.
8.
BahrickL. E.Krogh-JespersenS.ArgumosaM. A.LopezH. (2013). Intersensory redundancy hinders face discrimination in preschool children: Evidence for visual facilitation. Developmental Psychology, 50, 414–421.
9.
BahrickL. E.LickliterR. (2000). Intersensory redundancy guides attentional selectivity and perceptual learning in infancy. Developmental Psychology, 36, 190–201.
10.
BahrickL. E.LickliterR. (2004). Infants’ perception of rhythm and tempo in unimodal and multimodal stimulation: A developmental test of the intersensory redundancy hypothesis. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 4, 137–147.
11.
BahrickL. E.LickliterR. (2012). The role of intersensory redundancy in early perceptual, cognitive, and social development. In BremnerA. J.LewkowiczD. J.SpenceC. (Eds.), Multisensory development (pp. 183–205). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
12.
BahrickL. E.LickliterR.CastellanosI. (2013). The development of face perception in infancy: Intersensory interference and unimodal visual facilitation. Developmental Psychology, 49, 1919–1930.
13.
BahrickL. E.LickliterR.CastellanosI.Vaillant-MolinaM. (2010). Increasing task difficulty enhances effects of intersensory redundancy: Testing a new prediction of the intersensory redundancy hypothesis. Developmental Science, 13, 731–737.
14.
BahrickL. E.LickliterR.FlomR. (2004). Intersensory redundancy guides the development of selective attention, perception, and cognition in infancy. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13, 99–102.
15.
BahrickL. E.LickliterR.FlomR. (2006). Up versus down: The role of intersensory redundancy in the development of infants’ sensitivity to the orientation of moving objects. Infancy, 9, 73–96.
16.
BahrickL. E.PickensJ. N. (1994). Amodal relations: The basis for intermodal perception and learning. In LewkowiczD. J.LickliterR. (Eds.), The development of intersensory perception: Comparative perspectives (pp. 204–233). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
17.
BahrickL. E.ToddJ. T.MartinK. (2013, November). When adults act like babies: Intersensory facilitation for tasks of high difficulty. Poster presented at the meeting of the Society for the Study of Human Development, Fort Lauderdale, FL.
CastellanosI.Vaillant-MolinaM.LickliterR.BahrickL. E. (2006, October). Intersensory redundancy educates infants’ attention to amodal information in unimodal stimulation. Poster presented at the meeting of the International Society of Developmental Psychobiology Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA.
21.
ColomboJ. (2001). The development of visual attention in infancy. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 337–367.
22.
CourageM.ReynoldsG.RichardsJ. (2006). Infants’ attention to patterned stimuli: Developmental change from 3 to 12 months of age. Child Development, 77, 680–695.
23.
FlomR.BahrickL. E. (2007). The development of infant discrimination of affect in multimodal and unimodal stimulation: The role of intersensory redundancy. Developmental Psychology, 43, 238–252.
24.
FrankM. C.SlemmerJ. A.MarcusG. F.JohnsonS. P. (2009). Information from multiple modalities helps 5-month-olds learn abstract rules. Developmental Science, 12, 504–509.
25.
GibsonE. J. (1969). Principles of perceptual learning and development. East Norwalk, CT: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
26.
GibsonE. J.PickA. D. (2000). An ecological approach to perceptual learning and development. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
27.
GibsonJ. J. (1966). The senses considered as perceptual systems. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
28.
GogateL. J.BahrickL. E. (2001). Intersensory redundancy and 7-month-old infants’ memory for arbitrary syllable-object relations. Infancy, 2, 219–231.
29.
HollichG.NewmanR. S.JusczykP. W. (2005). Infants’ use of synchronized visual information to separate streams of speech. Child Development, 76, 598–613.
KellmanP. J.ArterberryM. E. (1998). The cradle of knowledge: Development of perception in infancy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
32.
KraebelK. S. (2012). Redundant amodal properties facilitate operant learning in 3-month-old infants. Infant Behavior & Development, 35, 12–21.
33.
LewkowiczD. J. (2000). The development of intersensory temporal perception: An epigenetic systems/limitations view. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 281–308.
34.
LewkowiczD. J. (2004). Perception of serial order in infants. Developmental Science, 7, 175–184.
35.
LewkowiczD. J.TurkewitzG. (1980). Cross-modal equivalence in early infancy: Auditory-visual intensity matching. Developmental Psychology, 16, 597–607.
