, 2008). Demographic variables (age, gender and second-language experience; see Table 1) were entered at the first stage for control purposes only, and they did not predict any variance in AVMMR (R2 = 0.011, R2adj = 0; F3,18 = 0.07, P = 0.976). The variables that represent the looking time at the mouth during four speech ET conditions were entered at the second stage, and these predicted a significant proportion

of variance (R2change = 0.610; F4,14 = 5.65, P = 0.006). The final model was also significant (R2 = 0.622, R2adj = 0.433; F7,14 = 3.29, P = 0.028). Within the final model, only the looking time to the mouth during the VbaAga-combination was significant, showing that it alone predicted unique variance additional to the other looking times (beta = −0.784, P = 0.028). These results demonstrated a strong association Selleck Bafilomycin A1 between the time spent looking at the mouth during the VbaAga-combination condition and the amplitude of the AVMMR in response Selleckchem CYC202 to the same stimuli (see Fig. 1). For illustration purposes, the participants were split into two groups (see Table 2) according to their looking preferences (percentage of time spent looking at the mouth while watching the incongruent VbaAga stimuli). Ten

infants who spent > 50% of the total face-scanning time fixating Ribose-5-phosphate isomerase the mouth in the VbaAga condition also looked significantly longer to the mouth in all other conditions (two-way anova, main effect of group: F1,20 = 12.91, P = 0.002, η2 = 0.39). They were assigned to the mouth-preference (MP) group (average ± SD

looking time to the mouth in all conditions 67.13 ± 15.2%; Table 2). The remaining 12 infants were assigned to the no-MP (NMP) group (average looking time to the mouth in all conditions 38.9 ± 20.6%). The AVMMR was only observed in the NMP group but not in the MP group. In the former, the AVMMR was clearly observed at the group level as a prolonged right frontocentral positivity (Fig. 2; for more channels see Supporting Information Figs S4 and S5). Although there was no significant association between the AVMMR amplitude and age in our regression model, for control purposes infants were split into the younger (6–7.5 months, n = 11) and the older group (7.5–9 months, n = 11) by median age (see Fig. S6). No difference in ERP responses to incongruent AV stimuli was found between the age groups in either time window (no effect of age; 140–240 ms, F1,20 = 0.11, P = 0.74; 290–390 ms, F1,20 = 2.7, P = 0.12; no age × condition interaction: 140–240 ms, F1,20 = 0.66, P = 0.42; 290–390 ms, F1,20 = 1.29, P = 0.27).