Kerr-German Anastasia N, Buss Aaron T
Center for Neurobehavioral Research, BTNRH, 14100 Crawford St., Boys Town, NE.
University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Department of Psychology, 1404 Circle Drive, Knoxville, TN 37996.
J Cogn Dev. 2020;21(3):313-325. doi: 10.1080/15248372.2020.1760279. Epub 2020 May 4.
Between the ages of 3 and 5, children develop greater control over attention to visual dimensions. Children develop the ability to flexibly shift between visual dimensions and to selectively process specific dimensions of an object. Previous proposals have suggested that selective and flexible attention are developmentally related to one another (e.g., Hanania & Smith, 2010). However, the relationship between flexibility and selectivity has not been systematically probed at the behavioral and neural levels. We administered a selective attention task (triad classification) along with a flexible attention task (dimensional change card sort) with 3.5- and 4.5-year-olds while functional near-infrared spectroscopy data were recorded. Results showed that children with high flexible attention skills engaged bilateral frontal cortex which replicates previous studies using this task. Moreover, children with high levels of selective attention engaged right frontal cortex. Together, these results indicate that development in right frontal cortex is important for both flexible and selective dimensional attention.
在3到5岁之间，儿童对视觉维度的注意力控制能力更强。儿童发展出在视觉维度之间灵活转换以及选择性处理物体特定维度的能力。先前的研究表明，选择性注意力和灵活性注意力在发展过程中相互关联（例如，哈纳尼亚和史密斯，2010年）。然而，灵活性和选择性之间的关系尚未在行为和神经层面上得到系统探究。我们对3.5岁和4.5岁的儿童进行了一项选择性注意力任务（三元组分类）以及一项灵活性注意力任务（维度变化卡片分类），同时记录功能性近红外光谱数据。结果显示，具有高灵活性注意力技能的儿童激活了双侧额叶皮层，这与此前使用该任务的研究结果一致。此外，具有高选择性注意力水平的儿童激活了右侧额叶皮层。这些结果共同表明，右侧额叶皮层的发育对灵活和选择性维度注意力都很重要。
