DEVELOPMENT OF CEREBRAL SPECIALIZATIONS

我们的长期目标是研究早期感觉体验的作用 以及神经和行为发育方面的早期语言经验。我们 将记录来自多个大脑区域的事件相关电位(ERP) 虽然聋人和听力受试者(SS)处理不同类型的感觉， 认知和语言信息。行为和ERP措施将是 受雇于调查其余部门的职能组织 自出生起就失聪的个体的感觉模式评估 认为这些系统表现出补偿性增长的假设 作为单峰剥夺的结果的活动。此外，我们还将 评估不同功能人员的行为和事件相关电位指数 大脑左右半球在发育过程中的特化 语言任务的执行情况，以确定可能发展的方面 学习所有形式语言，而不考虑它们的结构 和情态，以及可能由年龄决定的其他方面 母语的语言习得和处理需求。我们 将分别评估听觉剥夺和后天习得的影响 通过比较听力正常的受试者的结果来研究视觉语言 (SS)，第一语言为美国手语的先天聋生SS (ASL)和正常听力的SS，父母是聋人，他们的第一语言 是ASL。为了调查是否存在敏感的 或感觉和语言体验影响神经和语言的关键时期 行为发展，我们将研究那些后来失聪的人 将ASL作为第一语言学习，并获得ASL的先天聋人SS 在不同的发展时期。在这些人群中，我们将 在检测和定位过程中评估脑组织 视觉和躯体感觉刺激，在面部识别测试期间，以及 在英语和ASL的学习过程中。我们亦会评估 假设听觉和躯体感觉信息的处理是 从出生起就增强了SS失明，并且不同的可能性 盲人的认知经验和语言经验可能是相关的 之间的函数专门化模式发生了改变 半个半球。从长远来看，这项拟议的研究旨在 对聋哑人教育的最佳性质和时机的理解 盲童，以及听力/视力正常的儿童。

Our long-term objectives are to study the roles of early sensory experience and early language experience in neural and behavioral development. We will record event-related potentials (ERPs) from over several brain regions while deaf and hearing subject (Ss) process different kinds of sensory, cognitive and language information. Behavioral and ERP measures will be employed to investigate the functional organization of the remaining sensory modalities in individuals who have been deaf since birth to assess the hypothesis that these systems display compensatory increases in activity as a consequence of unimodal deprivation. Additionally, we will assess behavioral and ERP indices of the different functional specializations of the left and right cerebral hemispheres during the performance of language tasks to determine those aspects that may develop with the acquisition of all formal languages, regardless of their structure and modality, and other aspects which may be determined by the age of language acquisition and processing demands of the primary language. We will separately assess the effects of auditory deprivation and acquisition of a visual language by comparing results from normally hearing subjects (Ss), congenitally deaf Ss whose first language is American Sign Language (ASL) and normally hearing Ss, born to deaf parents, whose first language is ASL. In order to investigate the possibility that there are sensitive or critical periods when sensory and language experience impact neural and behavioral development, we will study later-deafened individuals who learned ASL as a first language, and congenitally deaf Ss who acquired ASL at different times in development. In each of these populations we will assess cerebral organization during the detection and localization of visual and somatosensory stimuli, during tests of facial recognition, and during the processing of English and ASL. We will also assess the hypothesis that the processing of auditory and somatosensory information is enhanced in Ss blind since birth, and the possibility that the different cognitive experience and language experience of the blind may be associated with an altered pattern of functional specializations between the hemispheres. The proposed research is pointed, in the long run, toward an understanding of the optimal nature and timing of education for deaf and blind children, as well as for normally hearing/sighted children.