Institute of Psychology (IPSY) and Institute of Neuroscience (IoNS), Université Catholique de Louvain, Place Cardinal Mercier 10, 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
Department of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Social and Educational Sciences, Institute of Cognitive Science and Assessment, Université du Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg.
Neuropsychologia. 2021 Jul 16;157:107874. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107874. Epub 2021 Apr 27.
Over the course of development, children must learn to map a non-symbolic representation of magnitude to a more precise symbolic system. There is solid evidence that finger and dot representations can facilitate or even predict the acquisition of this mapping skill. While several behavioral studies demonstrated that canonical representations of fingers and dots automatically activate number semantics, no study so far has investigated their cerebral basis. To examine these questions, 10-year-old children were presented a behavioral naming task and a Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation EEG paradigm. In the behavioral task, children had to name as fast and as accurately as possible the numbers of dots and fingers presented in canonical and non-canonical configurations. In the EEG experiment, one category of stimuli (e.g., canonical representation of fingers or dots) was periodically inserted (1/5) in streams of another category (e.g., non-canonical representation of fingers or dots) presented at a fast rate (4 Hz). Results demonstrated an automatic access to number semantics and bilateral categorical responses at 4 Hz/5 for canonical representations of fingers and dots. Some differences between finger and dot configuration's processing were nevertheless observed and are discussed in light of an effortful-automatic continuum hypothesis.
在发展过程中，儿童必须学会将数量的非符号表示映射到更精确的符号系统。有确凿的证据表明，手指和圆点的表示可以促进甚至预测这种映射技能的获得。虽然有几项行为研究表明，手指和圆点的规范表示会自动激活数字语义，但迄今为止，没有研究调查它们的大脑基础。为了研究这些问题，研究人员对 10 岁儿童进行了行为命名任务和快速周期性视觉刺激 EEG 范式测试。在行为任务中，儿童必须尽可能快、尽可能准确地命名以规范和非规范形式呈现的点和手指的数量。在 EEG 实验中，一类刺激（例如，手指或圆点的规范表示）以较快的速度（4Hz）周期性地插入另一类刺激（例如，手指或圆点的非规范表示）的流中（1/5）。结果表明，对于手指和圆点的规范表示，会自动访问数字语义，并在 4Hz/5 处产生双侧分类反应。然而，我们观察到手指和圆点配置处理之间存在一些差异，并根据努力-自动连续体假说进行了讨论。
