Speech perception is multimodal: we rely on both what we hear (speech sounds) and what we see (mouth movements) to enhance the reliability of communication.  For instance, we often read someone’s lips to better understand them when they are speaking in noisy environments or with a foreign accent. This process involves the integration of auditory and visual information and is thus called audiovisual integration, or audiovisual speech perception. However, while it increases reliability, it can also create perceptual illusions, such as the McGurk effect.​

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Interestingly, research shows that Western adults demonstrate stronger audiovisual integration compared to East Asian adults. But what about infants? Using the McGurk effect as an index and total looking time as a measure, we examined the audiovisual integration of Canadian and Chinese infants (6 to 12 months old). Our findings revealed that Canadian infants exhibit a stronger McGurk effect than their Chinese counterparts, suggesting different developmental trajectories in audiovisual integration and the early emergence of cultural influences on speech perception.