The detection of communicative signals directed at the self in infant prefrontal cortex
The detection of communicative signals directed at the self in infant prefrontal cortex
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DOI：
10.3389/fnhum.2010.00201
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发表时间：
2010-10-25
影响因子：
2.9
通讯作者：
Friederici, Angela D.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Grossmann, Tobias;Parise, Eugenio;Friederici, Angela D.
人与人之间成功沟通的先决条件是检测到表明沟通意图的信号，例如眼神接触或呼叫某人的名字。在成年人中，通过眼神接触或叫一个人的名字来建立交流会导致右前额叶皮层的重叠活动，这表明，无论哪种方式，交流的意图都是由同一个大脑区域检测到的。我们使用近红外光谱（NIRS）测量了5个月大婴儿的前额叶皮层反应，以研究在早期发育中检测跨模式通信信号的神经基础。婴儿会看到人类的面孔，这些面孔要么发出眼神接触的信号，要么把目光从婴儿身上移开，他们也会听到用自己的名字或其他名字称呼他们的声音。结果显示，婴儿在处理眼神交流和说出自己的名字时，会激活左侧背侧前额叶皮层中相邻但不重叠的区域。此外，相关分析显示，在一个前额叶区域对目光接触反应敏感的婴儿也更有可能在相邻的前额叶区域对自己的名字反应敏感，这表明这两个区域对交流信号的反应可能在功能上相关。这些近红外光谱的结果表明，婴儿有选择地处理和参加针对他们的沟通信号。然而，与成年人不同，婴儿在处理不同形式的交流信号时似乎没有招募一个共同的前额叶区域。这些研究结果的影响，我们了解婴儿的发展沟通能力进行了讨论。
A precondition for successful communication between people is the detection of signals indicating the intention to communicate, such as eye contact or calling a person's name. In adults, establishing communication by eye contact or calling a person's name results in overlapping activity in right prefrontal cortex, suggesting that, regardless of modality, the intention to communicate is detected by the same brain region. We measured prefrontal cortex responses in 5-month-olds using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to examine the neural basis of detecting communicative signals across modalities in early development. Infants watched human faces that either signaled eye contact or directed their gaze away from the infant, and they also listened to voices that addressed them with their own name or another name. The results revealed that infants recruit adjacent but non-overlapping regions in the left dorsal prefrontal cortex when they process eye contact and own name. Moreover, infants that responded sensitively to eye contact in the one prefrontal region were also more likely to respond sensitively to their own name in the adjacent prefrontal region as revealed in a correlation analysis, suggesting that responding to communicative signals in these two regions might be functionally related. These NIRS results suggest that infants selectively process and attend to communicative signals directed at them. However, unlike adults, infants do not seem to recruit a common prefrontal region when processing communicative signals of different modalities. The implications of these findings for our understanding of infants' developing communicative abilities are discussed.