Department of Psychology, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Knoxville, USA.
Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Knoxville, USA.
Sci Rep. 2022 Jun 30;12(1):11008. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-14761-2.
A key to understanding how the brain develops is to understand how learning can change brain function. One index of learning that takes place in early childhood involves the comprehension and production of labels describing the shape and color features of objects, a process known as dimensional label learning (DLL). DLL requires integrating auditory and visual stimuli to form a system of mappings that link label representations (e.g. "red" and "color") and visual feature representations (e.g. "red" and the hue red). Children gain expertise with these labels between the ages of 2 and 5 years, and at the same time they begin to demonstrate skills in using labels to guide cognitive function in other domains. For example, one of the hallmark measures of executive function development requires children to use verbally instructed rules to guide attention to visual dimensions. The broader impact of DLL, however, has not yet been explored. Here, we examine how the neural processes associated with the comprehension and production of labels for visual features predicts later performance on executive function tasks. Specifically, we show that left frontal cortex is activated during comprehension and production tasks at 33 months of age. Moreover, we find that neural activation in this region during label production at 33 months is associated with dimensional attention, but not spatial selective attention, at 45 months. These results shed new light on the role of label learning in developmental changes in brain and behavior. Moreover, these data suggest that dimensional label learning generalizes beyond the learned information to influence other aspects of cognition. We anticipate that these results may serve as a starting point for future work to implement label training as an intervention to influence later cognition.
理解大脑如何发育的关键是了解学习如何改变大脑功能。儿童早期发生的学习的一个指标涉及到对描述物体形状和颜色特征的标签的理解和产生，这个过程被称为维度标签学习（DLL）。DLL 需要整合听觉和视觉刺激，以形成将标签表示（例如“红色”和“颜色”）和视觉特征表示（例如“红色”和色调红色）链接起来的映射系统。儿童在 2 至 5 岁之间获得这些标签的专业知识，同时他们开始展示使用标签来指导其他领域认知功能的技能。例如，执行功能发展的标志性衡量标准之一要求儿童使用口头指令规则来指导对视觉维度的注意力。然而，DLL 的更广泛影响尚未得到探索。在这里，我们研究与视觉特征标签的理解和产生相关的神经过程如何预测以后执行功能任务的表现。具体来说，我们表明，在 33 个月大时，左额叶皮层在理解和产生任务中被激活。此外，我们发现，在 33 个月大时在标签产生过程中该区域的神经激活与 45 个月时的维度注意有关，但与空间选择性注意无关。这些结果为标签学习在大脑和行为发育变化中的作用提供了新的视角。此外，这些数据表明，维度标签学习不仅限于所学信息，还会影响认知的其他方面。我们预计这些结果可以作为未来实施标签训练作为影响后期认知的干预措施的起点。
