Developmental study reveals divergent audiovisual speech integration between Chinese and Canadian infants, suggesting early cultural experience shapes multisensory processing.
Key Points
To determine whether cultural differences in audiovisual speech perception emerge during the first year of life.
Assessed audiovisual speech integration across four behavioral experiments measuring the McGurk effect.
Tested 6- to 12-month-old White Canadian infants (n = 111) and Chinese infants (n = 115) using both native and other-race face stimuli.
Canadian infants demonstrated a stable McGurk effect from 6 months of age onward.
Chinese infants exhibited a more protracted developmental trajectory for audiovisual integration, which was further attenuated when challenged with other-race faces.