Primate Research Institute Kyoto University Inuyama Aichi Japan.
Brain Behav. 2017 May 2;7(6):e00715. doi: 10.1002/brb3.715. eCollection 2017 Jun.
It is well known that prioritization of the processing of threatening stimuli generally induces deleterious effects on task performance. However, a study recently reported that emotion (possibly fear) evoked by viewing images of snakes exerts a facilitating effect upon making judgments of the images' color in neurotypical adults and schoolchildren. Here, the author has attempted to confirm the relevance of this notion in children with and without intellectual disability.
The author here compared the reaction time required to name the colors of snake and flower images between children with Down syndrome (DS) and mental age matched, typically-developing (TD) children.
Snake images were responded to faster than flower images in both the groups, while the children with DS tended to respond more slowly overall.
As in TD children, negative emotion can have a motivating effect on cognitive processing in children with DS. Some implications of the findings are pointed out with respect to the lower-level task persistence as a characteristic motivational orientation in children with DS.
众所周知，优先处理威胁性刺激通常会对任务表现产生不利影响。然而，最近的一项研究报告称，观看蛇的图像所引起的情绪（可能是恐惧）会对神经典型成年人和学童对图像颜色的判断产生促进作用。在这里，作者试图在有和没有智力障碍的儿童中证实这一概念的相关性。
作者比较了唐氏综合征（DS）儿童和智力年龄匹配的典型发育（TD）儿童对蛇和花图像颜色命名所需的反应时间。
两组儿童对蛇的反应都比对花的反应快，而 DS 儿童的总体反应速度较慢。
与 TD 儿童一样，负性情绪对 DS 儿童的认知加工有激励作用。研究结果指出了与 DS 儿童较低层次的任务坚持有关的特征性动机取向的一些意义。
