Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Dev Sci. 2023 Jan;26(1):e13277. doi: 10.1111/desc.13277. Epub 2022 Jun 7.
The development of the ability to anticipate-as manifested by preparatory actions and neural activation related to the expectation of an upcoming stimulus-may play a key role in the ontogeny of cognitive skills more broadly. This preregistered study examined anticipatory brain potentials and behavioral responses (reaction time; RT) to anticipated target stimuli in relation to individual differences in the ability to use goals to direct action (as indexed by measures of executive function; EF). A cross-sectional investigation was conducted in 40 adults (aged 18-25 years) and 40 children (aged 6-8 years) to examine the association of changes in the amplitude of modality-specific alpha-range rhythms in the electroencephalogram (EEG) during anticipation of lateralized visual, tactile, or auditory stimuli with inter- and intraindividual variation in RT and EF. Children and adults exhibited contralateral anticipatory reductions in the mu rhythm and the visual alpha rhythm for tactile and visual anticipation, respectively, indicating modality and spatially specific attention allocation. Variability in within-subject anticipatory alpha lateralization (the difference between contralateral and ipsilateral alpha power) was related to single-trial RT. This relation was more prominent in adults than in children, and was not apparent for auditory stimuli. Multilevel models indicated that interindividual differences in anticipatory mu rhythm lateralization contributed to the significant association with variability in EF, but this was not the case for visual or auditory alpha rhythms. Exploratory microstate analyses were undertaken to cluster global field power (GFP) into a distribution-free temporal analysis examining developmental differences across samples and in relation to RT and EF. Anticipation is suggested as a developmental bridge construct connecting neuroscience, behavior, and cognition, with anticipatory EEG oscillations being discussed as quantifiable and potentially malleable indicators of stimulus prediction.
预期能力的发展——表现为与对即将到来的刺激的预期相关的预备动作和神经激活——可能在认知技能的个体发生中发挥关键作用。这项预先注册的研究考察了与使用目标来指导行动的能力（以执行功能测量为指标）相关的预期目标刺激的预期脑电位和行为反应（反应时间；RT）的个体差异。对 40 名成年人（年龄 18-25 岁）和 40 名儿童（年龄 6-8 岁）进行了横断面研究，以考察在预期侧化视觉、触觉或听觉刺激时脑电图（EEG）中模态特定 alpha 范围节律的幅度变化与 RT 和 EF 的个体间和个体内变化之间的关联。儿童和成人在预期触觉和视觉刺激时分别表现出 mu 节律和视觉 alpha 节律的对侧预期减少，表明了模态和空间特定的注意力分配。个体内预期 alpha 侧化的变异性（对侧和同侧 alpha 功率之间的差异）与单次试验 RT 相关。这种关系在成年人中比在儿童中更为明显，而对于听觉刺激则不明显。多层次模型表明，预期 mu 节律侧化的个体间差异有助于与 EF 变异性的显著关联，但视觉或听觉 alpha 节律则不然。进行了探索性微状态分析，以将全局场功率（GFP）聚类为无分布的时间分析，该分析跨样本和与 RT 和 EF 一起检查了发育差异。预期被认为是连接神经科学、行为和认知的发展桥梁结构，预期 EEG 振荡被讨论为可量化的、潜在可塑的刺激预测指标。
