Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA; Iowa Neuroscience Institute, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA; DeLTA Center, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA.
Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA.
Trends Cogn Sci. 2023 Mar;27(3):233-245. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2022.12.014. Epub 2023 Jan 20.
Cognition in preverbal human infants must be inferred from overt motor behaviors such as gaze shifts, head turns, or reaching for objects. However, infant mammals - including human infants - show protracted postnatal development of cortical motor outflow. Cortical control of eye, face, head, and limb movements is absent at birth and slowly emerges over the first postnatal year and beyond. Accordingly, the neonatal cortex in humans cannot generate the motor behaviors routinely used to support inferences about infants' cognitive abilities, and thus claims of developmental continuity between infant and adult cognition are suspect. Recognition of the protracted development of motor cortex should temper rich interpretations of infant cognition and motivate more serious consideration of the role of subcortical mechanisms in early cognitive development.
前言语婴儿的认知能力必须从明显的运动行为推断出来，例如目光转移、头部转动或伸手取物。然而，婴儿期哺乳动物——包括人类婴儿——表现出皮质运动输出的延长的产后发育。出生时眼睛、面部、头部和四肢运动的皮质控制缺失，并在出生后的第一年及以后逐渐出现。因此，人类新生儿皮质不能产生通常用于支持关于婴儿认知能力推断的运动行为，因此，关于婴儿和成人认知之间存在发育连续性的说法值得怀疑。认识到运动皮层的延长发育应该缓和对婴儿认知的丰富解释，并促使更认真地考虑皮质下机制在早期认知发展中的作用。
