Reese Clarissa J, Stiles Joan
Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla 92093, CA 92093-0115, USA.
Neuropsychologia. 2005;43(4):517-29. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2004.07.013.
Hemispheric specialization of categorical and coordinate image generation was assessed in adults, 8-year-old and 10-year-old children. In a standardized image generation task, participants decided whether probes, presented in a blank grid (categorical task) or bracketed square (coordinate task), would have appeared on a previously studied letter. To ensure that participants mentally generated the target letter, probe location was varied. "Early" probes appeared on letter segments that are first produced when the letter is drawn; while "late" probes appeared on later produced segments. Like previous adult studies, the grid task elicited a left hemisphere "categorical" strategy; while the bracket task elicits a right hemisphere "coordinate" strategy. However, contrary to previous research, the results reveal the significant and complex effects of probe location on categorical and coordinate image generation abilities. Specifically, early probes elicited a strong right hemisphere advantage for both tasks across all ages, whereas late probes produced a left hemisphere dissociation between categorical and coordinate processing. The left hemisphere dissociation was evident only for 10-year-olds and adults, suggesting that younger children are not yet proficient in generating spatial representations.
研究评估了成人、8岁和10岁儿童在分类图像生成和坐标图像生成方面的半球特化情况。在一项标准化的图像生成任务中，参与者要判断呈现于空白网格（分类任务）或带括号方块（坐标任务）中的探测刺激是否会出现在之前研究过的字母上。为确保参与者在脑海中生成目标字母，探测刺激的位置会有所变化。“早期”探测刺激出现在绘制字母时首先画出的字母片段上；而“晚期”探测刺激出现在随后画出的片段上。与之前针对成人的研究一样，网格任务引发了左半球的“分类”策略；而括号任务引发了右半球的“坐标”策略。然而，与之前的研究相反，结果显示探测刺激位置对分类图像生成能力和坐标图像生成能力有显著且复杂的影响。具体而言，在所有年龄段中，早期探测刺激在两项任务上均引发了强烈的右半球优势，而晚期探测刺激在分类处理和坐标处理之间产生了左半球的分离。左半球的分离仅在10岁儿童和成人中明显，这表明年幼儿童在生成空间表征方面还不够熟练。
