Visuomotor Learning

Cook, A.J., Aziz, M., Zafar, A., Giaschi, D., Im, H.Y. (2023). Developmental characteristics of visuomotor adaptation strategies in childhood.

Visual-motor integration is an essential skill in children’s development for acquiring new movements in dynamic environments. This requires visuomotor adaptation, in which motor commands are adjusted in response to visual feedback. Previous studies in adults suggest the contribution of two stages: an early, attentive processing stage for rapid error reduction and a later, implicit stabilization stage. Using a child friendly task, we are testing young children aged 6-11 and adults to determine how these processes mature.

Meier K, Giaschi D. (2019) The Effect of Stimulus Area on Global Motion Thresholds in Children and Adults. Vision, 3(10), 1-11. c

https://doi.org/10.3390/vision3010010 

Meier K, Giaschi D. (2014) The Maturation of Global Motion Perception Depends on the Spatial and Temporal Offsets of the Stimulus. Vision Research 95, 61-67.    

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2013.12.007 

Giaschi, D., Narasimhan, S., Solski, A., Harrison, E. & Wilcox, L.M. (2013) On the typical development of stereopsis: Fine and coarse processing. Vision Research , 89, 65-71.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042698913001867?via%3Dihub

Edwards V, Giaschi D, Low P, Edgell D (2005) Sensory and non-sensory influences on children’s performance of dichotic pitch perception tasks. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,117, 3157-3164.

Dichotic pitch perception reflects the auditory system's use of binaural cues to perceptually separate different sound sources and to determine the spatial location of sounds. Several studies were conducted to identify factors that influence children's dichotic pitch perception thresholds. An initial study of school children revealed an age-related improvement in thresholds for lateralizing dichotic pitch tones. In subsequent studies potential sensory and nonsensory limitations on young children's performance of dichotic pitch lateralization tasks were examined. A training study showed that with sufficient practice, young children lateralize dichotic pitch stimuli as well as adults, indicating an age difference in perceptual learning of the lateralization task. Changing the task requirements so that young children made a judgment about the pitch of dichotic pitch tones, rather than the spatial location of the tones, also resulted in significantly better thresholds. These findings indicate that nonsensory factors limit young children's performance of dichotic pitch tasks.

Parrish E, Giaschi D, Boden C, Dougherty D (2005) The maturation of form and motion perception in school age children. Vision Research, 45, 827-837.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042698904005140