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重点。这些早期调控过程的出现可能也会对认知发展产生影响。在第一年晚些时候，婴儿开始表现出对工作记忆任务的抑制控制。然而，与认知行为相关的抑制过程可能与与气质有关的过程相似。事实上，在婴儿文学中有很多猜测，认为气质和认知过程之间存在某种联系，尽管目前还没有已知的发育研究被设计来探索这些联系在婴儿时期的起源。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部注意力系统。该系统侧重于前扣带回的情绪(即气质)-注意和认知-注意功能。这项拟议的研究的目标是检查与认知和气质相关的调节过程之间的联系。这项研究项目将构成一项纵向研究的婴儿部分。这项拟议工作的总体假设是，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个月大的时候接受认知和气质测试。将同时使用行为和生理(EEG、EKG)测量。本研究的主要假设有两个：1)母性敏感对气质困扰对工作记忆成绩的影响具有调节作用。2)婴儿的调节过程通过气质苦恼对工作记忆表现的调节作用来调节母亲的敏感性。这些假设特定于10个月的评估期，也就是早期注意/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，因为它们将首次尝试使用多种生理和行为指标来检验气质和环境之间的相互作用对婴儿期认知的影响。婴儿情绪和认知的这种融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(即注意力缺陷障碍、抑郁)的基础以及相关认知复杂性的假设。

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.