The Development of Number Words in the Human Brain

项目摘要 我们的研究计划旨在定义支持早期数字符号学习的系统。 童年-认知发展和认知神经科学领域的基础问题。的 数字词汇习得在发育中的大脑中是如何展开的，这个问题还没有得到证实。通过使用 在对3- 7岁儿童的纵向研究中，我们将首次评估神经系统如何影响儿童的行为。 数字概念的表征随着儿童口头数字词汇能力的发展而变化， 数字以及大脑皮层激活模式如何与儿童在学校的数学能力相关。 目前来自成年人和年龄较大的儿童的证据表明，数字单词并不是由大脑处理的， 典型的词，在颞叶皮层的语义区域，而是在感知机制接地 顶叶皮层的空间和数量维度。 根据以往的研究和我们的初步数据，我们假设，顶内沟（IPS） 在数量的知觉表征中发展了符号数字表征。我们 将测试顶叶皮层对数量的知觉表征表现出功能重叠的程度 在儿童早期用数字符号表示。我们的研究带来了新的理论区别， 创新的方法，和新类型的数据，以一个长期的行为研究的传统， 发展数词。我们提出的假设、实验和分析都很好- 在先前的研究中发现，但也提供了对数学认知具有广泛意义的新见解， 教育和语言发展。这些基础研究的进展将提供基础知识， 学习障碍的研究。

Project Summary Our research program aims to define the systems that support number symbol learning during early childhood – a foundational issue in the fields of cognitive development and cognitive neuroscience. The question of how number word acquisition unfolds in the developing brain is an untested phenomenon. By using fMRI in longitudinal studies of 3- to 7-year-old children, we will assess, for the first time, how neural representations of numerical concepts change as children develop capacity with spoken number words and numerals and how patterns of cortical activation relate to children’s mathematical competence in school. Current evidence from adults and older children suggests that number words are not processed by the brain as typical words, in semantic regions of temporal cortex, but are instead grounded in the perceptual mechanisms of parietal cortex that represent spatial and quantitative dimensions. Based on previous research and our preliminary data, we hypothesize that the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) grounds the development of symbolic number representations in perceptual representations of quantity. We will test the degree to which perceptual representations of quantity in parietal cortex exhibit functional overlap with symbolic number representations during early childhood. Our research brings new theoretical distinctions, innovative methods, and new types of data to a long-standing behavioral research tradition on the development of number words. The hypotheses, experiments, and analyses that we propose are all well- founded in prior research but also offer novel insights with broad significance for mathematical cognition, education, and language development. These basic research advances will provide foundational knoweldge for research on learning impairments.