Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and Behavior Program, Tobin Hall, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA.
Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2012 Jan;2(1):120-8. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2011.03.002. Epub 2011 Mar 21.
Recent event-related potential (ERP) evidence demonstrates that adults employ temporally selective attention to preferentially process the initial portions of words in continuous speech. Doing so is an effective listening strategy since word-initial segments are highly informative. Although the development of this process remains unexplored, directing attention to word onsets may be important for speech processing in young children who would otherwise be overwhelmed by the rapidly changing acoustic signals that constitute speech. We examined the use of temporally selective attention in 3- to 5-year-old children listening to stories by comparing ERPs elicited by attention probes presented at four acoustically matched times relative to word onsets: concurrently with a word onset, 100 ms before, 100 ms after, and at random control times. By 80 ms, probes presented at and after word onsets elicited a larger negativity than probes presented before word onsets or at control times. The latency and distribution of this effect is similar to temporally and spatially selective attention effects measured in adults and, despite differences in polarity, spatially selective attention effects measured in children. These results indicate that, like adults, preschool aged children modulate temporally selective attention to preferentially process the initial portions of words in continuous speech.
最近的事件相关电位（ERP）研究表明，成年人会使用时间选择性注意来优先处理连续言语中的单词初始部分。这种做法是一种有效的听力策略，因为单词开头的部分提供了大量的信息。尽管这个过程的发展尚未得到探索，但对于幼儿来说，将注意力集中在单词的开头可能非常重要，因为他们会被构成言语的快速变化的声学信号所淹没。我们通过比较在与单词起始相对应的四个声学匹配时间（即单词起始时、100 毫秒前、100 毫秒后和随机控制时间）处呈现的注意探针诱发的 ERP，来研究 3 至 5 岁儿童在听故事时使用时间选择性注意的情况。与在单词起始之前或在控制时间呈现的探针相比，在单词起始时或之后呈现的探针诱发了更大的负性。该效应的潜伏期和分布与在成年人中测量的时间和空间选择性注意效应相似，尽管在极性上存在差异，但与在儿童中测量的空间选择性注意效应相似。这些结果表明，与成年人一样，学龄前儿童会调节时间选择性注意，以优先处理连续言语中的单词初始部分。
