Home assessment of visual working memory in pre-schoolers reveals associations between behaviour, brain activation and parent reports of life stress,Developmental Science

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Home assessment of visual working memory in pre-schoolers reveals associations between behaviour, brain activation and parent reports of life stress
Developmental Science ( IF 3.1 ) Pub Date : 2021-03-09 , DOI: 10.1111/desc.13094
Courtney A McKay ₁ , Yee Lee Shing _{2,

3} , Eva Rafetseder ₁ , Sobanawartiny Wijeakumar _{1,

4}

Affiliation

Visual working memory (VWM) is reliably predictive of fluid intelligence and academic achievements. The objective of the current study was to investigate individual differences in pre-schoolers’ VWM processing by examining the association between behaviour, brain function and parent-reported measures related to the child's environment. We used a portable functional near-infrared spectroscopy system to record from the frontal and parietal cortices of 4.5-year-old children (N = 74) as they completed a colour change-detection VWM task in their homes. Parents were asked to fill in questionnaires on temperament, academic aspirations, home environment and life stress. Children were median-split into a low-performing (LP) and a high-performing (HP) group based on the number of items they could successfully remember during the task. LPs increasingly activated channels in the left frontal and bilateral parietal cortices with increasing load, whereas HPs showed no difference in activation. Our findings suggest that LPs recruited more neural resources than HPs when their VWM capacity was challenged. We employed mediation analyses to examine the association between the difference in activation between the highest and lowest loads and variables from the questionnaires. The difference in activation between loads in the left parietal cortex partially mediated the association between parent-reported stressful life events and VWM performance. Critically, our findings show that the association between VWM capacity, left parietal activation and indicators of life stress is important to understand the nature of individual differences in VWM in pre-school children.

中文翻译：

学龄前儿童视觉工作记忆的家庭评估揭示了行为、大脑激活和父母对生活压力的报告之间的关联

视觉工作记忆 (VWM) 可以可靠地预测流体智力和学术成就。当前研究的目的是通过检查行为、大脑功能和家长报告的与儿童环境相关的措施之间的关联来调查学龄前儿童 VWM 处理的个体差异。我们使用便携式功能性近红外光谱系统记录了 4.5 岁儿童的额叶和顶叶皮质 ( N = 74) 因为他们在家里完成了颜色变化检测 VWM 任务。要求家长填写关于气质、学业抱负、家庭环境和生活压力的问卷。根据孩子们在任务中能够成功记住的项目数量，他们被中位数分为低绩效 (LP) 和高绩效 (HP) 组。随着负荷的增加，LPs 越来越多地激活左额叶和双侧顶叶皮质中的通道，而 HPs 在激活方面没有差异。我们的研究结果表明，当他们的 VWM 能力受到挑战时，LPs 比 HPs 招募了更多的神经资源。我们采用中介分析来检查最高和最低负荷之间的激活差异与问卷中的变量之间的关联。左顶叶皮层负荷之间的激活差异部分介导了父母报告的压力生活事件与 VWM 表现之间的关联。至关重要的是，我们的研究结果表明，VWM 能力、左顶叶激活和生活压力指标之间的关联对于了解学龄前儿童 VWM 个体差异的性质很重要。

更新日期：2021-03-09

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