Infant Visual Attention: Neural Mechanisms and Individual Differences

注意力是有效的知觉处理和学习的基本组成部分。研究发现，婴儿第一次看到视觉刺激时的眼神特征与她或他处理和记忆该刺激的能力有关。有趣的是，与对新刺激表现出较长目光的婴儿相比，对新刺激表现出短视的婴儿更有可能随后认识到该刺激。此外，与婴儿期看得较长的人相比，婴儿期看得较短的人在儿童早期的认知功能更好。早期发育注意力变异的可能来源尚不清楚，对大脑发育和婴儿注意力之间的关系知之甚少。这项研究考察了婴儿视觉注意力的个体差异可能是基于参与眼球运动自愿控制的大脑系统的发展。相对于长脸婴儿，短眼婴儿在参与主动控制眼球运动的大脑系统的发育方面可能更先进。当婴儿在4个月和6个月大时被呈现一系列视觉模式时，观察行为、眼球运动和大脑活动将被测量。短视和长视婴儿参与主动控制眼动的大脑活动之间的差异将特别令人感兴趣。这项研究的发现将提供对注意力早期发展的洞察，以及正常发育婴儿注意力的典型变异性范围。这一点尤其重要，因为人们已经发现，婴儿外表行为的某些特征可以预测儿童在广泛的认知任务中的表现。此外，与正常儿童相比，有认知缺陷风险的儿童和被诊断为唐氏综合症的儿童需要更长的检查时间来处理视觉刺激。确定与婴儿注意力个体差异有关的生物机制，如早期大脑发育，可以为未来为有发育障碍风险的儿童制定早期识别和干预计划提供信息。注意力是学习过程中的一个基本组成部分。了解注意力在早期发展中的基本方面，是更广泛地理解注意力在一生中有效学习中的作用的必要的第一步。

Attention is a fundamental component of effective perceptual processing and learning. The characteristics of how a baby looks at a visual stimulus when seeing it for the first time have been found to relate to how well she or he processes and remembers that stimulus. Interestingly, babies who demonstrate short looks towards a new stimulus are more likely to subsequently recognize that stimulus compared to infants who demonstrate long looks towards a new stimulus. Furthermore, shorter looking in infancy is associated with better cognitive functioning in early childhood compared to longer looking in infancy. Possible sources of variability in attention in early development remain unknown, and relatively little is known about the relationship between brain development and infant attention. This study examines the possibility that individual differences in infant visual attention are based on the development of brain systems involved in the voluntary control of eye movements. Short-looking infants may be advanced in the development of brain systems involved in the voluntary control of eye movements relative to long-looking infants. Looking behavior, eye movements, and brain activity will be measured while infants are presented with a series of visual patterns at 4 and 6 months of age. Differences between short- and long-looking infants' brain activity involved in the voluntary control of eye movements will be of particular interest. Findings from this research will provide insight into the early development of attention, and the typical range of variability in attention for normally developing infants. This is particularly important given that certain characteristics of infant looking behavior have been found to be predictive of performance on a wide range of cognitive tasks in childhood. Furthermore, children at risk for developing cognitive deficits and children diagnosed with Down syndrome require longer inspection to process a visual stimulus compared to normal children. Identifying biological mechanisms, such as early brain development, associated with individual differences in infant attention can inform future development of early identification and intervention programs for children at risk for developmental disabilities. Attention is a fundamental component of the learning process. Understanding the basic aspects of attention in early development is a necessary first step to gaining a broader understanding of the role of attention in effective learning throughout the life span.