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Serino G, Mareschal D, Scerif G, Kirkham N. Playing hide and seek: Contextual regularity learning develops between 3 and 5 years of age. J Exp Child Psychol 2024; 238:105795. [PMID: 37862788 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105795] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/25/2023] [Revised: 09/20/2023] [Accepted: 09/21/2023] [Indexed: 10/22/2023]
Abstract
The ability to acquire contextual regularities is fundamental in everyday life because it helps us to navigate the environment, directing our attention where relevant events are more likely to occur. Sensitivity to spatial regularities has been largely reported from infancy. Nevertheless, it is currently unclear when children can use this rapidly acquired contextual knowledge to guide their behavior. Evidence of this ability is indeed mixed in school-aged children and, to date, it has never been explored in younger children and toddlers. The current study investigated the development of contextual regularity learning in children aged 3 to 5 years. To this aim, we designed a new contextual learning paradigm in which young children were presented with recurring configurations of bushes and were asked to guess behind which bush a cartoon monkey was hiding. In a series of two experiments, we manipulated the relevance of color and visuospatial cues for the underlying task goal and tested how this affected young children's behavior. Our results bridge the gap between the infant and adult literatures, showing that sensitivity to spatial configurations persists from infancy to childhood, but it is only around the fifth year of life that children naturally start to integrate multiple cues to guide their behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giulia Serino
- Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1E 7HX, UK.
| | - Denis Mareschal
- Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1E 7HX, UK
| | - Gaia Scerif
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6GG, UK
| | - Natasha Kirkham
- Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1E 7HX, UK
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2
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Picci G, Ott LR, Petro NM, Casagrande CC, Killanin AD, Rice DL, Coutant AT, Arif Y, Embury CM, Okelberry HJ, Johnson HJ, Springer SD, Pulliam HR, Wang YP, Calhoun VD, Stephen JM, Heinrichs-Graham E, Taylor BK, Wilson TW. Developmental alterations in the neural oscillatory dynamics underlying attentional reorienting. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2023; 63:101288. [PMID: 37567094 PMCID: PMC10432959 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101288] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/13/2023] [Revised: 07/23/2023] [Accepted: 08/04/2023] [Indexed: 08/13/2023] Open
Abstract
The neural and cognitive processes underlying the flexible allocation of attention undergo a protracted developmental course with changes occurring throughout adolescence. Despite documented age-related improvements in attentional reorienting throughout childhood and adolescence, the neural correlates underlying such changes in reorienting remain unclear. Herein, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to examine neural dynamics during a Posner attention-reorienting task in 80 healthy youth (6-14 years old). The MEG data were examined in the time-frequency domain and significant oscillatory responses were imaged in anatomical space. During the reorienting of attention, youth recruited a distributed network of regions in the fronto-parietal network, along with higher-order visual regions within the theta (3-7 Hz) and alpha-beta (10-24 Hz) spectral windows. Beyond the expected developmental improvements in behavioral performance, we found stronger theta oscillatory activity as a function of age across a network of prefrontal brain regions irrespective of condition, as well as more limited age- and validity-related effects for alpha-beta responses. Distinct brain-behavior associations between theta oscillations and attention-related symptomology were also uncovered across a network of brain regions. Taken together, these data are the first to demonstrate developmental effects in the spectrally-specific neural oscillations serving the flexible allocation of attention.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giorgia Picci
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA; Center for Pediatric Brain Health, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA
| | - Lauren R Ott
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA
| | - Nathan M Petro
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA; Center for Pediatric Brain Health, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA
| | - Chloe C Casagrande
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA
| | - Abraham D Killanin
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA; Center for Pediatric Brain Health, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA; College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, USA
| | - Danielle L Rice
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA; Center for Pediatric Brain Health, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA
| | - Anna T Coutant
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA; Center for Pediatric Brain Health, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA
| | - Yasra Arif
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA
| | - Christine M Embury
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA
| | - Hannah J Okelberry
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA
| | - Hallie J Johnson
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA
| | - Seth D Springer
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA; College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, USA
| | - Haley R Pulliam
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA; Center for Pediatric Brain Health, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA
| | - Yu-Ping Wang
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA
| | - Vince D Calhoun
- Tri-institutional Center for Translational Research in Neuroimaging and Data Science (TReNDS) [Georgia State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory University], Atlanta, GA, USA
| | | | - Elizabeth Heinrichs-Graham
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA; Center for Pediatric Brain Health, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA; Department of Pharmacology & Neuroscience, Creighton University, Omaha, NE, USA
| | - Brittany K Taylor
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA; Center for Pediatric Brain Health, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA; Department of Pharmacology & Neuroscience, Creighton University, Omaha, NE, USA
| | - Tony W Wilson
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA; Center for Pediatric Brain Health, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA; Department of Pharmacology & Neuroscience, Creighton University, Omaha, NE, USA.
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Manning C, Scerif G. Understanding perceptual decisions by studying development and neurodiversity. CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2023; 32:300-306. [PMID: 37547284 PMCID: PMC7614885 DOI: 10.1177/09637214231162369] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/08/2023]
Abstract
A cornerstone of human information processing is how we make decisions about incoming sensory percepts. Much of psychological science has focused on understanding how these judgements operate in skilled adult observers. While not typically the focus of this research, there is considerable variability in how adults make these judgements. Here, we review complementary computational modelling, electrophysiological data, eye-tracking and longitudinal approaches to the study of perceptual decisions across neurotypical development and in neurodivergent individuals. These data highlight multiple parameters and temporal dynamics feeding into how we become skilled adult perceptual decision makers, and which may help explain why we vary so much in how we make perceptual decisions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Catherine Manning
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, UK
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK
| | - Gaia Scerif
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK
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Mento G, Toffoli L, Della Longa L, Farroni T, Del Popolo Cristaldi F, Duma GM. Adaptive Cognitive Control in Prematurely Born Children: An HD-EEG Investigation. Brain Sci 2022; 12:brainsci12081074. [PMID: 36009137 PMCID: PMC9406101 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci12081074] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/21/2022] [Revised: 08/08/2022] [Accepted: 08/12/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Preterm birth is a neurodevelopmental risk condition often associated with cognitive control (CC) impairment. Recent evidence showed that CC can be implicitly adapted through associative learning. In the present study we investigated the ability to flexibly adjust CC as a function of implicit stimulus-response temporal regularities in preterm (PT; N = 21; mean age 8 ± 1.3 years; gestational age 30 ± 18.5 weeks) and full-term (FT; N = 20; mean age 8 ± 1.3 years) school-age children. All children underwent an HD-EEG recording while undergoing the Dynamic Temporal Prediction (DTP) task, a simple S1–S2 detection task purposely designed to generate local-global temporal predictability of imperative stimuli. The Wisconsin card sorting test (WCST) was administered to measure explicit CC. The PT group showed more premature and slower (DTP) as well as perseverative (WCST) responses than the FT group. Moreover, pre-terms showed poor adaptive CC as revealed by less efficient global response-speed adjustment. This behavioral pattern was mirrored by a reduced and less sensitive to global manipulation anticipatory Contingent Negative Variation (CNV) and by different cortical source recruitment. These findings suggest that implicit CC may be a reliable endophenotypic marker of atypical cognitive development associated with preterm birth.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giovanni Mento
- Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
- Padova Neuroscience Center (PNC), University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
- Correspondence:
| | - Lisa Toffoli
- Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
| | - Letizia Della Longa
- Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
| | - Teresa Farroni
- Padova Neuroscience Center (PNC), University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
- Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
| | - Fiorella Del Popolo Cristaldi
- Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
- IRCCS “La Nostra Famiglia-Medea”, Conegliano, 31015 Treviso, Italy
| | - Gian Marco Duma
- Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
- Institut de Neurosciences des Systèmes, Aix-Marseille Université, 13005 Marseille, France
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Rosen ML, Lurie LA, Sambrook KA, Meltzoff AN, McLaughlin KA. Neural mechanisms underlying the income-achievement gap: The role of the ventral visual stream. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2021; 52:101025. [PMID: 34700196 PMCID: PMC8551593 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2021.101025] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2021] [Revised: 09/13/2021] [Accepted: 10/18/2021] [Indexed: 02/03/2023] Open
Abstract
Children from low-socioeconomic status (SES) households on average exhibit lower academic achievement than their higher-SES peers. We investigated a novel hypothesis that differences in early-developing sensory networks-specifically the ventral visual stream (VVS), which is involved in processing visual stimuli-contribute to SES-related disparities in executive functions (EF) and academic outcomes. We used fMRI to investigate SES-related differences in neural function in children (6-8 years, n = 62) during two attentional tasks involving attention to visual information: cued attention and memory-guided attention. Recruitment of VVS during both tasks was associated with EF and academic achievement, and SES-related differences in VVS activation during cued attention were marginally explained by differences in cognitive stimulation. VVS activation during cued attention mediated SES-related differences in academic achievement. Finally, the link between VVS activation during both tasks and academic achievement was mediated by differences in EF. We extend previous work by highlighting that: (i) early-developing visual processing regions play a role in supporting complex attentional processes, (ii) childhood SES is associated with VVS function, which is explained in part by SES-related differences in cognitive stimulation and (iii) provide preliminary evidence that individual differences in VVS function may play a role in the emergence of the income-achievement gap.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maya L Rosen
- Harvard University, Department of Psychology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
| | - Lucy A Lurie
- University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Kelly A Sambrook
- Harvard University, Department of Psychology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Andrew N Meltzoff
- University of Washington, Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, Seattle, WA, USA; University of Washington, Department of Psychology, Seattle, WA, USA
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Ghetti S, Fandakova Y. Neural Development of Memory and Metamemory in Childhood and Adolescence: Toward an Integrative Model of the Development of Episodic Recollection. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2020. [DOI: 10.1146/annurev-devpsych-060320-085634] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Memory and metamemory processes are essential to retrieve detailed memories and appreciate the phenomenological experience of recollection. Developmental cognitive neuroscience has made strides in revealing the neural changes associated with improvements in memory and metamemory during childhood and adolescence. We argue that hippocampal changes, in concert with surrounding cortical regions, support developmental improvements in the precision, complexity, and flexibility of memory representations. In contrast, changes in frontoparietal regions promote efficient encoding and retrieval strategies. A smaller body of literature on the neural substrates of metamemory development suggests that error monitoring processes implemented in the anterior insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex trigger, and perhaps support the development of, metacognitive evaluationsin the prefrontal cortex, while developmental changes in the parietal cortex support changes in the phenomenological experience of episodic retrieval. Our conclusions highlight the necessity of integrating these lines of research into a comprehensive model on the neurocognitive development of episodic recollection.
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Affiliation(s)
- Simona Ghetti
- Department of Psychology and Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, California 95618, USA
| | - Yana Fandakova
- Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, 14195 Berlin, Germany
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Rosen ML, Meltzoff AN, Sheridan MA, McLaughlin KA. Distinct aspects of the early environment contribute to associative memory, cued attention, and memory-guided attention: Implications for academic achievement. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2019; 40:100731. [PMID: 31766007 PMCID: PMC6917893 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2019.100731] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/12/2019] [Revised: 10/06/2019] [Accepted: 11/04/2019] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Childhood socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with numerous aspects of cognitive development and disparities in academic achievement. The specific environmental factors that contribute to these disparities remain poorly understood. We used observational methods to characterize three aspects of the early environment that may contribute to SES-related differences in cognitive development: violence exposure, cognitive stimulation, and quality of the physical environment. We evaluated the associations of these environmental characteristics with associative memory, cued attention, and memory-guided attention in a sample of 101 children aged 60-75 months. We further investigated whether these specific cognitive abilities mediated the association between SES and academic achievement 18 months later. Violence exposure was specifically associated with poor associative memory, but not cued attention or memory-guided attention. Cognitive stimulation and higher quality physical environment were positively associated with cued attention accuracy, but not after adjusting for all other environmental variables. The quality of the physical environment was associated with memory-guided attention accuracy. Of the cognitive abilities examined, only memory-guided attention contributed to SES-related differences in academic achievement. These findings suggest specificity in how particular aspects of early environmental experience scaffold different types of attention and memory subserved by distinct neural circuits and shed light on a novel cognitive-developmental mechanism underlying SES-related disparities in academic achievement.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maya L Rosen
- Department of Psychology, Harvard University of Washington, United States.
| | - Andrew N Meltzoff
- Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, University of Washington, United States
| | - Margaret A Sheridan
- Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, United States
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Doherty BR, Fraser A, Nobre AC, Scerif G. The functional consequences of social attention on memory precision and on memory-guided orienting in development. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2019; 36:100625. [PMID: 30844682 PMCID: PMC6969233 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2019.100625] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2018] [Revised: 01/11/2019] [Accepted: 02/04/2019] [Indexed: 11/04/2022] Open
Abstract
Adults are slower at locating targets in naturalistic scenes containing a social distractor compared to an equally salient non-social distractor, and their subsequent memory for targets in social scenes is poorer. Therefore, adults’ social biases affect not only attention, but also their memory. Six-to-ten year-old children and young adults took part in the current study, employing a combination of behavioural and eye-tracking measures. Social stimuli in naturalistic scenes distracted both children and adults during visual search, as demonstrated by their gaze behavior and search times. In addition, eye-tracking revealed even greater attentional capture by social distractors for children. Memory for targets was worse in social compared to non-social scenes. Intriguingly, children demonstrated overall better memory precision than adults. Finally, when participants detected previously learnt targets within visual scenes, adults were slower for targets appearing at unexpected (invalid) locations within social scenes compared to non-social scenes, but this was not the case for children. In their entirety, these findings suggest that the interplay between social attentional biases, memory and memory-guided attention is complex and modulated by age-related differences. Complementary methodologies in developmental cognitive neuroscience shed light on the mechanisms through which social attention and memory interact over development.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Alexander Fraser
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
| | - Anna Christina Nobre
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom; Oxford Centre for Human Brain Activity, Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
| | - Gaia Scerif
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom.
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