Molfese Dennis L, Molfese Victoria J, Beswick Jennifer, Jacobi-Vessels Jill, Molfese Peter J, Key Alexandra P F, Starkey Gillian
Birth Defects Center, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, USA.
Dev Neuropsychol. 2008;33(6):682-706. doi: 10.1080/87565640802418647.
The goal of the present study was to investigate whether advanced cognitive skills in one domain impact the neural processing of unrelated skills in a different cognitive domain. This question is related to the broader issue of how cognitive-neurodevelopment proceeds as different skills are mastered. To address this goal, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were used to assess linkages between cognitive skills of preschool children as reflected in their performance on a pre-reading screening test (Get Ready To Read) and their neural responses while engaged in a geometric shape matching task. Sixteen children (10 males) participated in this study. The children ranged from 46 to 60 months (SD = 4.36 months). ERPs were recorded using a 128-electrode high-density array while children attended to presentations of matched and mismatched shapes (triangles, circles, or squares). ERPs indicated that children with more advanced pre-reading skills discriminated between matched and mismatched shapes earlier than children with poorer pre-readings skills. The earlier discrimination effect observed in the advanced group was localized over the occipital electrode sites whereas in the Low Group such effects were present over frontal, parietal, and occipital sites. Modeled magnetic resonance images (MRIs) of the ERP component sources identified differences in neural generators between the two groups. Both sets of findings support the hypothesis that processing in a poorer-performing group is more distributed temporally and spatially across the scalp, and reflects the engagement of more distributed brain regions. These findings are seen as support for a theory of neural-cognitive development that is advanced in the present article.
本研究的目的是调查一个领域的高级认知技能是否会影响不同认知领域中不相关技能的神经处理过程。这个问题与随着不同技能的掌握认知神经发育如何进行这一更广泛的问题相关。为了实现这一目标，事件相关脑电位（ERP）被用于评估学龄前儿童在阅读前筛查测试（《准备好阅读》）中的表现所反映的认知技能与他们在进行几何形状匹配任务时的神经反应之间的联系。16名儿童（10名男性）参与了本研究。儿童年龄在46至60个月之间（标准差 = 4.36个月）。当儿童观看匹配和不匹配形状（三角形、圆形或正方形）的展示时，使用128电极高密度阵列记录ERP。ERP表明，阅读前技能更先进的儿童比阅读前技能较差的儿童更早地区分匹配和不匹配的形状。在高级组中观察到的更早的区分效应出现在枕叶电极部位，而在低技能组中，这种效应出现在额叶、顶叶和枕叶部位。ERP成分源的模拟磁共振图像（MRI）确定了两组之间神经发生器的差异。这两组发现都支持了这样一种假设，即表现较差的组在头皮上的时间和空间处理分布更广，反映了更多脑区的参与。这些发现被视为对本文中提出的神经认知发展理论的支持。
