THE EMERGENCE OF COGNITIVE CONTROL

描述（由申请人提供）：注意力的重要和相关结构， 执行功能（EF）本身由多种技能和操作组成， 受到多种制约因素影响。我们将通过以下方式来考察认知的控制： 对比环境约束、经验约束和执行约束在不同物种和不同儿童发展中的作用。先前的研究表明，猴子和人类成年人在导致外源性或内源性注意力转移的变量的影响方面存在可靠的表现差异。似乎有理由认为，猴子的表现模式也可能是其他注意力不成熟或存在其他缺陷的个体的典型表现，特别是注意力的执行性、动机性和目的性控制。这些发现强调了将研究扩展到学龄前儿童和接受过和没有接受过语言训练的黑猩猩的必要性。本研究的目的是进一步阐明比较的性质和数量的因素，包括注意和EF，并确定这些因素之间的关系和其他方面的认知，如学习，记忆和语言。此外，使用非侵入性成像技术 和生物化学测定被提出来阐明作为注意力和相关结构基础的脑-行为关系，特别是那些与注意力控制中的变化相对应的脑-行为关系。我们还将调查可能导致猴子，黑猩猩，儿童和成人的执行注意力提高的培训和其他干预措施。总之，这些结果将有助于对注意力和EF的统一观点，整合跨物种和整个生命周期的数据。我们预计，这些发现将对评估和补救注意力和EF的个体和群体差异产生影响，包括那些有助于注意力缺陷或执行障碍综合征诊断的差异。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The important and related constructs of attention and executive function (EF) are each themselves comprised of multiple skills and operations, and are subject to influence by multiple sources of constraint. We will examine the control of cognition by contrasting the potency of environmental constraints, experiential constraints, and executive constraints across species and across child development. Previous research suggests reliable performance differences between monkeys and human adults in the effects of variables that result in exogenous or endogenous shifts in attention. It seems reasonable to suggest that the pattern of performance for the monkeys may also be typical of other individuals for whom attention-and specifically the executive, motivated, purposive control of attention-is immature or otherwise deficit. These findings underscore the need to extend the research to preschool children and to chimpanzees with and without language training. This research is further designed to elucidate comparatively the nature and number of factors that comprise attention and EF and to identify the relation between these factors and other aspects of cognition like learning, memory, and language. Additionally, the use of noninvasive imaging techniques and biochemical assays are proposed to elucidate the brain-behavior relations that underlie attention and related constructs, and particularly those that correspond to variations in the control of attention. We will also investigate training and other interventions that might result in improved capacity for executive attention by monkeys, chimpanzees, children, and adults. Together, these results will contribute to a unified perspective on attention and EF that integrates data across species and across the lifespan. We anticipate that the findings will have implications for the assessment and remediation of individual and group differences in attention and EF, including those differences that contribute to attention-deficit or dysexecutive-syndrome diagnoses.