BRAIN, BEHAVIOR AND EMERGENCE OF COGNITIVE COMPETENCE

这一方案-项目提案反映了由美国国家语言和认知研究所支持的关于人类语言和认知的生物行为基础的研究的直接结果。它建立在从那项研究中阐明的心理学原理上，并使用在那里开发和证明的方法。然而，目前的建议并不侧重于语言习得。相反，本提案由六个单独的项目组成，旨在阐明灵长类物种、发育时期和其他分组变量中认知能力的出现，并与大脑结构、活动和功能相对应。本提案还受益于不同项目之间的大量重叠、互补和趋同，从而使整个计划的科学前景大大超过这些强大的单个项目预期的科学成果的总和。被研究的心理过程(注意力、执行功能、记忆、空间问题解决、数字认知、元认知)是密切相关的，任何一个过程的研究都需要理解它与其他语言结构的关系。此外，认知能力可以从不同的分析水平进行研究，本提案旨在阐明心理和神经生物学水平之间的对应关系。这些项目的综合和这支调查组的管理将得到一个核心的支持。脑结构和活动的图像将有利于该计划-项目中的所有研究，正如照顾非人类灵长类动物和维护实验室资源将有利于所有的建议。它的核心支持和功能将确保这里提出的雄心勃勃的研究计划以高效和综合的方式进行，利用我们独特而有限的动物资源来产生最大的科学成果。

This program-project proposal reflects a direct outgrowth of research on the biobehavioral foundations of human language and cognition supported by NICHD-06016. It builds on the psychological principles articulated from that research and uses methods developed and proven there. However, the present proposal is not focused on language acquisition. Rather, the present proposal is comprised of six separate projects designed to elucidate the emergence of cognitive competence at it is manifest across primate species, development periods, and other grouping variables, and in correspondence with brain structure, activity and function. The present proposal also benefits from substantial overlap, complementarity, and in convergence between the separate projects, such that the scientific promise of the entire program greatly exceeds the sum of anticipated scientific gains of each of these strong individual projects. The psychological processes being investigated (attention, executive function, memory, spatial problem solving, numerical cognition, metacognition) are closely inter-related, and the study of any one process requires understanding its relation to language the other constructs. Further, cognitive competence can be studied from different levels of analysis, and the present proposal aims to elucidate the correspondence between the psychological and the neurobiological levels. The synthesis of these projects and the administration of the this team of investigators will be supported by a core. Images of brain structure and activity will benefit all of the investigations in this program-project, just as care of the non-human primates and maintenance of laboratory resource will be to the advantage of all of the proposals. Its core support and functions will ensure that the ambitious program of research proposed here is conducted in an efficient and integrative way, using our unique and limited animal resources to yield the greatest scientific gains.