Unveiling neurodevelopmental changes in multisensory integration while controlling attention

It is well-accepted that multisensory integration (MSI) undergoes protracted maturation from childhood to adulthood. However, existing evidence may have been confounded by potential age-related differences in attention. To unveil neurodevelopmental changes in MSI while matching top-down attention between children and adults, we recorded event-related potentials of healthy children aged 7 to 9 years and young adults in the visual-to-auditory attentional spreading paradigm wherein attention and MSI could be measured concurrently. The absence of children versus adults differences in the visual selection negativity component and behavioral measures of auditory interference first demonstrates that the child group could maintain top-down visual attention and ignore task-irrelevant auditory information to a similar extent as adults. Then, the stimulus-driven attentional spreading quantified by the auditory negative difference (Nd) component was found to be overall absent in the child group, revealing the children’s largely immature audiovisual binding process. These findings furnish strong evidence for the protracted maturation of MSI per se from childhood to adulthood, hence providing a new benchmark for characterizing the developmental course of MSI. In addition, we also found that the representation-driven attentional spreading measured by another Nd was present but less robust in children, suggesting their substantially but not fully developed audiovisual representation coactivation process.