The Neural Organization of Quantitative Concepts in Early Childhood

描述(申请人提供)：对幼儿大脑中数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”，以获得动词计数单词、阿拉伯数字、书写数字单词的含义，以及加法和减法等基本算术运算的程序。心理学和教育学领域的研究人员已经确定，这些早期的数学里程碑会影响孩子们在接下来的正规教育中学习数学的能力。然而，关于早期数字和数学学习的哪些方面影响了儿童后来对数学的理解，存在着相当大的争论。一些研究者认为认知的领域概括性因素在早期和后期的数学学习中起着至关重要的作用，而另一些研究者则认为，早期发展的特定领域的数字理解特性，如数字编码和比较，在整个发展过程中永久地影响着数学理解。神经成像方法提供了一种方法，通过提供一种工具来检验数字认知潜在过程中的关联和分离，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，并将为了解发育中大脑中数学过程的来源、功能和特殊性提供新的见解。目前的建议旨在对儿童(4至8岁)和成年人进行功能磁共振成像(FMRI)和行为研究，这些研究考察符号和非符号数字表征和比较的机制，以及这些机制与标准化测试成绩之间的关系。研究范式旨在考察1)符号和非符号数字表征，2)数字编码、比较和反应选择，以及3)数值和非数值(如大小和空间)之间的联系和分离。此外，拟议的研究旨在测试特定于数字的大脑反应与领域一般大脑反应之间的关系，以及儿童在标准化数学、智商和工作记忆测试中的表现。这些研究的结果将揭示哪些与数字相关的能力与发展有关，这些能力在幼儿时期是如何在大脑中组织的，以及与数字相关的和一般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有关。更广泛地说，这些研究将建立在来自儿童早期数学表现的大量行为数据的基础上，通过对数字和数学学习的早期标记提供新的(生物学)见解，并将阐明数学表现障碍的潜在基础。

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.