Benavides-Varela Silvia, Gómez David M, Mehler Jacques
Cognitive Neuroscience Sector, International School for Advanced Studies Trieste, Italy.
Front Psychol. 2011 Apr 18;2:64. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00064. eCollection 2011.
The measurement of newborns' brain hemodynamic activity has improved our understanding of early cognitive processes, in particular of language acquisition. In this paper, we describe two experimental protocols adapted to study neonates' speech-processing capacities using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS): the block design and the familiarization-recognition design. We review some of their benefits and disadvantages, and refer to research issues that can be explored by means of these protocols. We also illustrate the use of the two experimental designs through representative fNIRS studies that reveal specific patterns of activation of the newborn brain during speech perception, learning of repetition structures, and word recognition.
对新生儿脑血流动力学活动的测量增进了我们对早期认知过程的理解，尤其是对语言习得的理解。在本文中，我们描述了两种适用于使用功能近红外光谱技术（fNIRS）研究新生儿语音处理能力的实验方案：组块设计和熟悉-识别设计。我们回顾了它们的一些优缺点，并提及了可以通过这些方案探索的研究问题。我们还通过具有代表性的fNIRS研究来说明这两种实验设计的使用情况，这些研究揭示了新生儿在语音感知、重复结构学习和单词识别过程中大脑激活的特定模式。
