Early experience and multisensory perceptual narrowing.

Perceptual narrowing reflects the effects of early experience and contributes in key ways to perceptual and cognitive development. Previous studies have found that unisensory perceptual sensitivity in young infants is broadly tuned such that they can discriminate native as well as non-native sensory inputs but that it is more narrowly tuned in older infants such that they only respond to native inputs. Recently, my coworkers and I discovered that multisensory perceptual sensitivity narrows as well. The present article reviews this new evidence in the general context of multisensory perceptual development and the effects of early experience. Together, the evidence on unisensory and multisensory narrowing shows that early experience shapes the emergence of perceptual specialization and expertise.