Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, UK.
Institute of Psychology, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany.
Dev Sci. 2021 Jul;24(4):e13094. doi: 10.1111/desc.13094. Epub 2021 Mar 9.
Visual working memory (VWM) is reliably predictive of fluid intelligence and academic achievements. The objective of the current study was to investigate individual differences in pre-schoolers' VWM processing by examining the association between behaviour, brain function and parent-reported measures related to the child's environment. We used a portable functional near-infrared spectroscopy system to record from the frontal and parietal cortices of 4.5-year-old children (N = 74) as they completed a colour change-detection VWM task in their homes. Parents were asked to fill in questionnaires on temperament, academic aspirations, home environment and life stress. Children were median-split into a low-performing (LP) and a high-performing (HP) group based on the number of items they could successfully remember during the task. LPs increasingly activated channels in the left frontal and bilateral parietal cortices with increasing load, whereas HPs showed no difference in activation. Our findings suggest that LPs recruited more neural resources than HPs when their VWM capacity was challenged. We employed mediation analyses to examine the association between the difference in activation between the highest and lowest loads and variables from the questionnaires. The difference in activation between loads in the left parietal cortex partially mediated the association between parent-reported stressful life events and VWM performance. Critically, our findings show that the association between VWM capacity, left parietal activation and indicators of life stress is important to understand the nature of individual differences in VWM in pre-school children.
视觉工作记忆 (VWM) 可可靠地预测流体智力和学业成绩。本研究的目的是通过检查行为、大脑功能与父母报告的与儿童环境相关的测量值之间的关系，来研究学龄前儿童 VWM 处理的个体差异。我们使用便携式近红外光谱功能成像系统，在 4.5 岁儿童（N=74）的额区和顶区记录他们在家庭中完成颜色变化检测 VWM 任务时的大脑活动。父母被要求填写关于气质、学业期望、家庭环境和生活压力的问卷。根据儿童在任务中能够成功记住的项目数量，将儿童分为低表现（LP）组和高表现（HP）组。LP 组随着负荷的增加，左额区和双侧顶区的通道逐渐活跃，而 HP 组的激活没有差异。我们的研究结果表明，当 LP 组的 VWM 容量受到挑战时，他们比 HP 组招募了更多的神经资源。我们采用中介分析来检验最高和最低负荷之间的激活差异与问卷变量之间的关联。左顶叶皮层在负荷之间的激活差异部分中介了父母报告的生活压力事件与 VWM 表现之间的关联。至关重要的是，我们的研究结果表明，VWM 能力、左顶叶激活与生活压力指标之间的关联对于理解学龄前儿童 VWM 个体差异的本质很重要。
