Infant Temperament and Cognitive Development

描述（申请人提供）：自我调节的个体差异一直是气质研究的焦点。这些早期调节过程的出现可能对认知发展也有影响。在一岁后期，婴儿开始表现出对工作记忆任务的抑制性控制。然而，与认知行为相关的抑制过程可能与与气质相关的抑制过程相似。事实上，在婴儿文献中有很多推测，认为气质和认知过程之间存在某种关系，尽管没有已知的发展研究被设计来探索这些联系在婴儿时期的开始。有能力将这些认知和气质过程联系在一起的大脑/行为系统是波斯纳的前注意系统。该系统侧重于情感（即气质）-注意和认知-注意功能的前扣带健身房。本研究的目的是研究与认知和气质相关的调节过程之间的联系。本研究项目将构成纵向研究的婴儿部分。这项研究的一般假设是，气质的个体差异、环境的调节作用以及与气质相关的调节过程导致了认知加工的个体差异。婴儿将在5个月和10个月时进行认知和气质测试。将采用行为和生理（脑电图、心电图）测量。主要有两个假设：1)母性敏感调节了气质困扰对工作记忆表现的影响。2)婴儿的调节过程通过对工作记忆表现的气质窘迫调节效应来调节母亲的敏感性。这些假设是针对10个月的评估期，即早期注意力/调节过程开始发展的时间。在制定这些监管程序之前的5个月评估期内，这些假设将不会得到支持。这些数据将是独一无二的，因为它们将是第一次尝试使用多种生理和行为指标来检查气质和环境之间的相互作用对婴儿期认知的影响。婴儿情感和认知整合的结果将促进对典型发育的理解。同样，它们有可能产生关于自我调节极端发展（即注意力缺陷障碍、抑郁症）和认知相关复杂性的基础假设。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Individual differences of self regulation have been the focus of temperament research. The emergence of these early regulatory processes may have implications for cognitive development as well. Late in the first year infants begin to exhibit inhibitory control on working memory tasks. It may be, however, that the inhibitory processes associated with cognitive behaviors are similar to those associated with temperament. Indeed, there is much speculation in the infant literature that some relation exists between temperament and cognitive processing, although no known developmental studies have been designed to explore the beginnings of these associations during infancy. The brain/behavior system that has the capacity to tie together these cognitive and temperament processes is Posner's anterior attention system. This system focuses on the emotion (i.e. temperament)-attention and cognitive-attention functions of the anterior cingulate gyms. The goal of this proposed research is to examine the associations between the regulatory processes associated with cognition and temperament. This research project will constitute the infant portion of a longitudinal study. The general hypothesis of this proposed work is that individual differences in temperament, the moderating role of the environment, and the regulatory processes associated with temperament, contribute to individual differences in cognitive processing. Infants will be assessed on cognitive and temperament measures at 5 and 10 months of age. Both behavioral and physiological (EEG, EKG) measures will be utilized. There are 2 primary hypotheses: 1) Maternal sensitivity moderates the effect of temperamental distress on working memory performance. 2) The infant's regulatory processes mediate the maternal sensitivity by temperamental distress moderation effect on working memory performance. These hypotheses are specific to the 10-month assessment period, the time at which early attentional/regulatory processes begin to develop. These hypotheses will not be supported at the 5-month assessment period, prior to the development of these regulatory processes. These data will be unique because they will be the first attempt to examine the effects of an interaction between temperament and environment on cognition during infancy using multiple physiological and behavioral indices. The results of this integration of infant emotion and cognition will advance understanding of typical development. Likewise, they have the potential to generate hypotheses about foundations for the development of extremes in self-regulation (i.e., attention deficit disorder, depression) and associated complexities in cognition.