Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

描述(由申请者提供)：该培训计划的目标是培训下一代发展科学家，使他们拥有必要的技能和知识，以真正了解人类智力和大脑的发展，以及非典型发育如何导致儿科认知和情感障碍。为此，我们的学生将接受多种发展认知神经科学方法的培训，以便他们能够在人类认知发展的行为研究、学习和发展的计算理论以及大脑发育的生物学机制之间建立联系。具体地说，除了在发展认知科学的传统方法方面获得坚实的基础外，我们的学生还将接受六个发展研究的新前沿领域的培训，这些领域正在本系积极开展。首先，计算机科学和机器学习的进步导致了新的计算模型(例如，归纳推理)，这些模型首次为认知发展中的许多长期问题提供了真正的牵引力；这项工作涉及与计算机科学和人工智能实验室的教师合作。第二，心理语言学、语言学和神经科学方法在理解语言方面的整合达到了一个新的水平。第三，为了加强传统发展工作和神经科学之间的联系，我们的教员现在正在推进发展认知神经科学的技术前沿，例如，通过开发方法，使我们能够对更小的儿童进行fMRI扫描。第四，我们中的许多人都在关注社会认知，这不仅构成了认知的核心领域，而且还包括许多可能在其他认知领域的发展中发挥必要作用的组成部分机制。第五，我们小组中的几乎每个人都在将他们在正常发育方面的工作与对发展障碍的平行研究结合起来，包括自闭症、阅读障碍和特定的语言障碍。此外，我们部门的许多成员正在研究大脑发育障碍的生物学机制。最后，我们系的许多教员正在研究大脑发育的基本神经机制，随着认知科学和神经科学之间的联系在未来十年得到加强，这个领域在理解认知发展方面将变得越来越重要。通过深入接触所有这些领域，我们的学生将处于塑造认知发展研究未来的理想地位。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of this training program is to train the next generation of developmental scientists with the skills and knowledge necessary to make real headway in understanding the development of the human mind and brain and how atypical development leads to pediatric disorders of cognition and emotion. To this end, our students will be trained in multiple approaches to developmental cognitive neuroscience, so that they can forge links between behavioral studies of cognitive development in humans, computational theories of learning and development, and biological mechanisms of brain development. Specifically, beyond receiving a firm foundation in traditional approaches to developmental cognitive science, our students will be trained in six new frontier areas of developmental research that are being actively pursued in our Department. First, advances in computer science and machine learning have led to new computational models (e.g., of inductive inference) that are for the first time providing real traction on many longstanding problems in cognitive development; this work involves collaborations with faculty in the Computer Science and AI Laboratory. Second, there has been a new level of integration among psycholinguistic, linguistic, and neuroscience approaches towards understanding language. Third, to enhance the connection between traditional developmental work and neuroscience, our faculty are now advancing the technical frontiers of developmental cognitive neuroscience, for example by developing methods that enable us to conduct fMRI scans on ever younger children. Fourth, many of us are focusing on social cognition, which not only constitutes a core domain of cognition, but which further includes many component mechanisms that are likely to play a necessary role in the development of other domains of cognition. Fifth, virtually everyone in our group is integrating their work on normal development with parallel studies of developmental disorders, including autism, dyslexia, and specific language impairment. In addition, many members of our Department are working on the biological mechanisms underlying developmental disorders of the brain. Finally, many faculty in our Department are investigating the basic neural mechanisms of brain development, an area that will be increasingly important in understanding cognitive development as the links between cognitive science and neuroscience strengthen over the next decade. Through intensive exposure to all of these areas, our students will be ideally positioned to shape the future of research in cognitive development.