Many everyday tasks require executive functions to achieve a certain goal. Quite often, this requires the integration of information derived from different sensory modalities. Children are less likely to integrate information from different modalities and, at the same time, also do not command fully developed executive functions, as compared to adults. Yet still, the role of developmental age-related effects on multisensory integration processes has not been examined within the context of multicomponent behavior until now (i.e., the concatenation of different executive subprocesses). This is problematic because differences in multisensory integration might actually explain a significant amount of the developmental effects that have traditionally been attributed to changes in executive functioning. In a system, neurophysiological approach combining electroencephaloram (EEG) recordings and source localization analyses, we therefore examined this question. The results show that differences in how children and adults accomplish multicomponent behavior do not solely depend on developmental differences in executive functioning. Instead, the observed developmental differences in response selection processes (reflected by the P3 ERP) were largely dependent on the complexity of integrating temporally separated stimuli from different modalities. This effect was related to activation differences in medial frontal and inferior parietal cortices. Primary perceptual gating or attentional selection processes (P1 and N1 ERPs) were not affected. The results show that differences in multisensory integration explain parts of transformations in cognitive processes between childhood and adulthood that have traditionally been attributed to changes in executive functioning, especially when these require the integration of multiple modalities during response selection. Hum Brain Mapp 38:4933-4945, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

• Klíčová slova
• EEG, children, multicomponent behavior, sensory integration, source localization,
• MeSH
• dětská psychologie MeSH
• dítě MeSH
• dospělí MeSH
• elektroencefalografie MeSH
• evokované potenciály fyziologie   MeSH
• exekutivní funkce fyziologie   MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mladý dospělý MeSH
• mozek růst a vývoj   fyziologie   MeSH
• neuropsychologické testy MeSH
• průřezové studie MeSH
• reakční čas MeSH
• sluchová percepce fyziologie   MeSH
• stárnutí fyziologie   psychologie   MeSH
• vývoj dítěte MeSH
• zraková percepce fyziologie   MeSH
• Check Tag
• dítě MeSH
• dospělí MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mladý dospělý MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH
• srovnávací studie MeSH

There have recently been considerable advances in our understanding of the neuronal mechanisms underlying multitasking, but the role of multimodal integration for this faculty has remained rather unclear. We examined this issue by comparing different modality combinations in a multitasking (stop-change) paradigm. In-depth neurophysiological analyses of event-related potentials (ERPs) were conducted to complement the obtained behavioral data. Specifically, we applied signal decomposition using second order blind identification (SOBI) to the multi-subject ERP data and source localization. We found that both general multimodal information integration and modality-specific aspects (potentially related to task difficulty) modulate behavioral performance and associated neurophysiological correlates. Simultaneous multimodal input generally increased early attentional processing of visual stimuli (i.e. P1 and N1 amplitudes) as well as measures of cognitive effort and conflict (i.e. central P3 amplitudes). Yet, tactile-visual input caused larger impairments in multitasking than audio-visual input. General aspects of multimodal information integration modulated the activity in the premotor cortex (BA 6) as well as different visual association areas concerned with the integration of visual information with input from other modalities (BA 19, BA 21, BA 37). On top of this, differences in the specific combination of modalities also affected performance and measures of conflict/effort originating in prefrontal regions (BA 6).

• MeSH
• akustická stimulace MeSH
• dospělí MeSH
• elektroencefalografie MeSH
• evokované potenciály fyziologie   MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mapování mozku MeSH
• mladiství MeSH
• motorické korové centrum anatomie a histologie   diagnostické zobrazování   fyziologie   MeSH
• plnění a analýza úkolů MeSH
• pozornost fyziologie   MeSH
• prefrontální mozková kůra anatomie a histologie   diagnostické zobrazování   fyziologie   MeSH
• psychomotorický výkon fyziologie   MeSH
• rozpoznávání fyziologické * MeSH
• světelná stimulace MeSH
• zrakové korové centrum anatomie a histologie   diagnostické zobrazování   fyziologie   MeSH
• Check Tag
• dospělí MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mladiství MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH