What are the contents of the infant mind? In the last decade, computational advances in fMRI have allowed researchers access to the internal representations of adults. Applied similarly in infants, fMRI stands to revolutionize our understanding of cognitive development. By measuring representations at their source, infant fMRI overcomes some of the limitations of behavioral measures. We discuss example domains where this approach could be fruitful, including episodic memory, semantic cognition, spatial representations, and theory of mind. In these and other areas, the richness of fMRI data could give new insight into how infants represent the world and potentially help resolve ongoing debates in developmental science.

婴儿心灵的内容是什么？在过去的十年中，fMRI的计算进展使研究人员可以使用成人的内部图像。功能磁共振成像在婴儿中的类似应用，将彻底改变我们对认知发展的理解。通过在源头测量表征，婴儿功能磁共振成像克服了行为测量的某些限制。我们讨论了这种方法可能卓有成效的示例领域，包括情节记忆，语义认知，空间表示和心理理论。在这些以及其他领域，fMRI数据的丰富性可以为婴儿如何代表世界提供新的见解，并有可能帮助解决发展科学中正在进行的辩论。