The Neural Organization of Quantitative Concepts in Early Childhood

幼儿期定量概念的神经组织

• 批准号: 7862115
• 负责人: Jessica F Cantlon
• 金额: $ 31.31万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-04-01 至 2015-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7862115
• 关键词: 8 year old; Adult; Affect; Age; Age-Months; Behavioral; Binding; Biological; Brain; Brain imaging; Brain region; Child; Cognition; Cognitive; Color; Complex; Data; Development; Digit structure; Disease; Dissociation; Education; Elderly; Foundations; Fragile X Syndrome; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Goals; Hereditary Disease; Impairment; Infant; Intelligence; Jordan; Judgment; Knowledge; Learning; Life; Link; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Mathematics; Measures; Methods; Neurophysiology - biologic function; Numerical value; Nursery Schools; Pattern; Performance; Play; Preschool Child; Procedures; Process; Property; Psyche structure; Psychology; Research Personnel; Rest; Role; School-Age Population; Schools; Series; Shapes; Short-Term Memory; Source; Specificity; Staging; Stimulus; Syndrome; System; Testing; Time; Turner' s Syndrome; Ursidae Family; Weight; Writing; base; behavior measurement; density; design; developmental disease; early childhood; insight; mathematical ability; neural patterning; neuroimaging; novel; operation; public health relevance; relating to nervous system; response; tool

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Extraordinarily little is known about the organization of quantitative concepts in the young child's brain. In just six years' time (between the ages of 2 and 8 years), children traverse a complex series of learning "stages" to acquire the meanings of verbal counting words, Arabic numerals, written number words, and the procedures of basic arithmetic operations such as addition and subtraction. Researchers in the fields of psychology and education have determined that these early mathematical milestones influence children's abilities to learn mathematics for the remainder of their formal education. However, there is considerable debate over which aspects of early numerical and mathematical learning influence children's subsequent understanding of mathematics. Some researchers hypothesize that domain-general aspects of cognition provide the critical link between early and late mathematics learning whereas other researchers argue that early-developing domain-specific properties of numerical understanding such as number encoding and comparison permanently impact mathematical understanding throughout development. Neuroimaging methods offer a means for bringing new data to bear on this debate, by providing a tool with which to examine associations and dissociations among the underlying processes of numerical cognition. Such data will offer a window into the organization of mathematical information in the young child's brain and will provide novel insights into the sources, functions, and specificity of mathematical processes in the developing brain. The current proposal aims to test children (4- to 8-year-olds) and adults in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and behavioral studies that examine the mechanisms of symbolic and nonsymbolic numerical representation and comparison, as well as the relationship between those mechanisms and performance on standardized tests. The study paradigms are designed to examine associations and dissociations among 1) symbolic and nonsymbolic numerical representation, 2) numerical encoding, comparison, and response selection, and 3) numerical quantities and non-numerical quantities such as size and space. Moreover, the proposed studies aim to test the relationships between number-specific brain responses versus domain-general brain responses and children's performance on standardized mathematics, IQ, and working memory tests. The results of these studies will reveal which number-related abilities are bound over development, how those abilities are organized in the brain during early childhood, and how number- related and domain-general brain responses are related to children's performance on different types of standardized tests. More broadly, these studies will build on the vast amount of behavioral data from children's early mathematical performance by providing new (biological) insights into the early markers of numerical and mathematical learning and will illuminate the potential bases of disorders in mathematical performance. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The mathematics abilities that children possess at a young age (even in preschool) affect their ability to learn math for the rest of their life. Brain imaging studies of math in young children are important for understanding what causes math abilities to develop normally and what causes them to be impaired. The results of these studies will be important for understanding poor math performance in school as well as developmental disorders that cause severe mathematical impairments.

描述（由申请人提供）：对于幼儿大脑中定量概念的组织知之甚少。在短短六年的时间里（2岁到8岁之间），孩子们经历了一系列复杂的学习“阶段”，掌握了口头计数词、阿拉伯数字、书面数字词的含义以及加减法等基本算术运算的程序。心理学和教育领域的研究人员已经确定，这些早期数学里程碑会影响儿童在剩余的正规教育中学习数学的能力。然而，关于早期数值和数学学习的哪些方面影响儿童随后对数学的理解，存在相当多的争论。一些研究人员假设，认知的一般领域方面提供了早期和晚期数学学习之间的关键联系，而其他研究人员则认为，早期发展的数字理解的特定领域属性（例如数字编码和比较）会永久影响整个发展过程中的数学理解。神经影像方法提供了一种方法，通过提供一种工具来检查数字认知的基本过程之间的关联和分离，从而为这场辩论带来新的数据。这些数据将为了解幼儿大脑中数学信息的组织提供一个窗口，并将为发育中大脑中数学过程的来源、功能和特异性提供新颖的见解。 目前的提案旨在通过功能磁共振成像 (fMRI) 和行为研究对儿童（4 至 8 岁）和成人进行测试，以检查符号和非符号数字表示和比较的机制，以及这些机制与标准化测试表现之间的关系。研究范式旨在检查 1) 符号和非符号数字表示，2) 数字编码、比较和响应选择，以及 3) 数字量和非数字量（例如大小和空间）之间的关联和分离。此外，拟议的研究旨在测试特定数字的大脑反应与一般领域的大脑反应与儿童在标准化数学、智商和工作记忆测试中的表现之间的关系。这些研究的结果将揭示哪些与数字相关的能力与发展密切相关，这些能力在儿童早期如何在大脑中组织，以及数字相关和通用领域的大脑反应如何与儿童在不同类型的标准化测试中的表现相关。更广泛地说，这些研究将建立在儿童早期数学表现的大量行为数据的基础上，为数字和数学学习的早期标志提供新的（生物学）见解，并将阐明数学表现障碍的潜在基础。 公共卫生相关性：儿童在年轻时（甚至在学前班）所拥有的数学能力会影响他们余生学习数学的能力。对幼儿数学的脑成像研究对于了解导致数学能力正常发展以及数学能力受损的原因非常重要。这些研究的结果对于理解学校数学成绩不佳以及导致严重数学障碍的发育障碍非常重要。