Podcast
Questions and Answers
What term describes the process by which a significant percentage of neurons die during migration?
What term describes the process by which a significant percentage of neurons die during migration?
Which suggestion describes the protocortex as initially undifferentiated?
Which suggestion describes the protocortex as initially undifferentiated?
Which of the following describes the concept of 'encerclment' in brain development?
Which of the following describes the concept of 'encerclment' in brain development?
What is the main idea behind 'embodiment' in the context of brain development?
What is the main idea behind 'embodiment' in the context of brain development?
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In the context of neuronal recycling, what is meant by the term 'fusiform gyrus' relating to the VWFA?
In the context of neuronal recycling, what is meant by the term 'fusiform gyrus' relating to the VWFA?
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What combination of skills is consistent with the Number Sense view of proficiency?
What combination of skills is consistent with the Number Sense view of proficiency?
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Which concept does NOT act as a barrier to math achievement according to the content provided?
Which concept does NOT act as a barrier to math achievement according to the content provided?
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Which aspect contributes the most to better performance in math for better readers?
Which aspect contributes the most to better performance in math for better readers?
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What is a key difference between tacit and explicit tasks as described in the content?
What is a key difference between tacit and explicit tasks as described in the content?
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What is the primary role of omission in the explicit-tacit processing gap?
What is the primary role of omission in the explicit-tacit processing gap?
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What leads to variability in problem-solving strategies from grade 2 to grade 3?
What leads to variability in problem-solving strategies from grade 2 to grade 3?
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Which prediction about moving objects is often incorrect?
Which prediction about moving objects is often incorrect?
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Which aspect has limited effect on basic calculation proficiency?
Which aspect has limited effect on basic calculation proficiency?
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What developmental milestone is typically achieved by age 4?
What developmental milestone is typically achieved by age 4?
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What phenomenon occurs when a child's ability to discriminate phonemes narrows to only their native language by age 12 months?
What phenomenon occurs when a child's ability to discriminate phonemes narrows to only their native language by age 12 months?
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In the context of emergent literacy, what activity is typically associated with later reading opportunities?
In the context of emergent literacy, what activity is typically associated with later reading opportunities?
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Which of the following is NOT a feature of shallow orthography as compared to deep orthography?
Which of the following is NOT a feature of shallow orthography as compared to deep orthography?
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What is a significant characteristic of the naming explosion that occurs around age 2?
What is a significant characteristic of the naming explosion that occurs around age 2?
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What factor contributes significantly to the vocabulary size difference between first graders of varying socioeconomic status (SES)?
What factor contributes significantly to the vocabulary size difference between first graders of varying socioeconomic status (SES)?
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What does metalinguistic awareness encompass in language development?
What does metalinguistic awareness encompass in language development?
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Which statement best describes the process of reading as it relates to the mental lexicon?
Which statement best describes the process of reading as it relates to the mental lexicon?
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What was the primary effect of sensori-motor training on the activation of the fusiform gyrus?
What was the primary effect of sensori-motor training on the activation of the fusiform gyrus?
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Which area of the brain showed more activation to letters than to shapes or pseudo-letters?
Which area of the brain showed more activation to letters than to shapes or pseudo-letters?
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How did visual training compare to sensori-motor training in terms of VWFA activation?
How did visual training compare to sensori-motor training in terms of VWFA activation?
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Which statement about hemispheric specialization in letter versus shape perception is accurate?
Which statement about hemispheric specialization in letter versus shape perception is accurate?
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What role does saying a word out loud play in the context of the trainings discussed?
What role does saying a word out loud play in the context of the trainings discussed?
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How does performance in recognition tasks compare to prediction tasks?
How does performance in recognition tasks compare to prediction tasks?
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What developmental change was observed regarding children's errors in recognition tasks?
What developmental change was observed regarding children's errors in recognition tasks?
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What kind of changes does sensori-motor experience lead to in visual processing?
What kind of changes does sensori-motor experience lead to in visual processing?
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How does visual processing occur according to the provided content?
How does visual processing occur according to the provided content?
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Which area of the brain is associated with individual letter perception?
Which area of the brain is associated with individual letter perception?
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What accounts for the differences in prediction accuracy with age?
What accounts for the differences in prediction accuracy with age?
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What characterizes the overlap between the VWFA and the Lateral Occipital Complex?
What characterizes the overlap between the VWFA and the Lateral Occipital Complex?
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What hypothesis lacks sufficient evidence in this context?
What hypothesis lacks sufficient evidence in this context?
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Study Notes
Cerebral Cortex Development
- Neurons migrate along radial glial cells, moving past old cells to the surface of the brain.
- During migration, approximately 20-50% of cells die due to errors in cell division or to eliminate surplus neurons.
- Synaptic pruning and cell death contribute to the stabilization of behaviors.
- Differentiation includes the growth and branching of dendrites and myelination; delays result in developmental delays.
Brain Region Differentiation
- Controversy exists over whether the differentiation of the cortex into areas/regions is domain-specific or activity-dependent (nature vs. nurture).
- The first suggestion proposes a protomap/blueprint, suggesting pre-specification of tissue with intrinsic markers.
- The second suggestion proposes an initially undifferentiated protocortex where regions outcompete each other for functions.
Neuronal Recycling
- Neuronal circuits with the most appropriate functions are repurposed through practice.
- For example, the fusiform gyrus is named the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA) when processing words, but it can also process objects and faces.
Understanding Brain Development
- Five key perspectives: Genes, Encellment, Embrainment, Embodiment, and Abstract Nature of Phonemes.
Genes
- Development is bidirectional, involving interplay between genes, neural activity, behavior, and the environment.
- Genes can be activated by certain activities, while the genes themselves can be used for other activities.
Encellment
- Neural activity plays a crucial role in progressive elaboration and stabilization of brain structures.
- For example, closing one eye during postnatal development can cause a shrinking of the closed eye's columns and expansion of the open eye's columns (activity-based competition).
Embrainment
- Brain development is context-sensitive, and its functions can be shaped by experience.
- For example, people who are blind from an early age show braille reading activity in areas that are typically associated with visual processing in sighted people.
- The brain exhibits interactive specialization, meaning a narrower set of circumstances can lead to functional specialization.
Embodiment
- The body acts as a filter, limiting the potential complexity of environmental representations when physical restrictions exist.
- Infants manipulating their environment to generate new sensory experiences (e.g., moving an arm to block a beam of light) leads to a proactive feedback loop.
- This perspective highlights the active role of individuals in their own brain development, not passively absorbing information but actively manipulating it.
Language Development
- Basic phonology, grammar, word meaning, and pragmatics are acquired by age 4.
- Basic syntactic structures are learned by age 2, with semantic notions being mapped onto these structures.
- Mental representations of abstract phonological structures are refined when learning to write.
Perceptual Narrowing
- Newborns can discriminate phonemes (sounds) from all spoken languages.
- By 12 months, they can only discriminate sounds from their native language.
- This narrowing process is linked to increased lexicon size, forcing finer discriminations and improved speech production.
Naming Explosion
- A dramatic increase in word knowledge occurs around age 2, coinciding with the use of multiple-word phrases.
Socioeconomic Status and Language Development
- First-graders from higher socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds have double the vocabulary size as those from lower SES backgrounds.
- Social use of language (pragmatics) develops throughout preschool, including basic conversational functions and speech acts.
Metalinguistic Awareness
- Refers to children's understanding of the components of language (morphology, phonology, grammar).
- Contributes to reading development.
Emergent Literacy
- Highlights the developmental continuity between cognitive tasks during preschool and learning to read.
- Activities involving books in young children contribute to later reading opportunities.
- Literacy emerges in various forms before conventional reading and writing.
Learning to Read in Alphabetic Reading Systems
- Differences in orthographic depth (consistency of letter-sound mapping) influence reading development.
- Shallow orthographies, such as those found in Finnish, Italian, and Dutch, have consistent letter-sound mappings.
- English has irregularities in graphemes and phonemes, especially with larger, subsyllabic "rimes" (vowel + syllable endings).
Grapheme-Phoneme Mapping
- Context-sensitive mapping between graphemes, phonemes, and larger units (e.g., finger counting) is crucial for reading development, despite being discouraged by traditional views.
Mathematical Development
- Early mastery of basic number combinations is not a barrier to math achievement.
- Conceptual knowledge does not completely mediate basic calculation and achievement.
Everyday Conceptions of Object Fall
- The text focuses on two main points: explicit understanding and tacit understanding of object fall.
Explicit Understanding
- People often predict that objects will fall vertically, diagonally, travel backward, or continue horizontally, but rarely predict their actual parabolic paths.
- Heavy items are predicted to fall faster, but they should have the same maximum velocity.
- Explicit understanding requires conceptual knowledge and deliberate reflection.
Tacit Understanding
- Tacit understanding involves recognizing patterns and making judgments based on previous experience.
- Recognition tasks do not require deliberation or inference and can be more unconscious.
Omission Hypothesis
- The omission hypothesis explains the gap between explicit and tacit understanding by suggesting that people omit explicit elements that are tacitly understood.
- The data offers insufficient evidence to support this hypothesis.
Development of Object Fall Understanding
- Performance on recognition tasks improves with age, indicating a developmental change rather than a simple improvement.
- Recognition tasks may reveal conceptions that are the reverse of those in prediction tasks.
General Discussion on Everyday Conceptions of Object Fall
- The text concludes that:
- Prediction task accuracy is often lower than recognition task accuracy.
- Predictions improve with age.
- Recognition is marginally better in correct scenarios than incorrect ones.
- The omission hypothesis is not fully supported by the data.
- Conceptual elements guide predictions, even when not used in recognition.
Sensori-Motor Experience and Visual Processing
- Functional specialization, with different brain areas specializing in different stimuli, emerges from extensive experience.
- The anterior left fusiform gyrus is specialized for single letters, while the posterior left fusiform (VWFA) is specialized for strings/words.
- Overlaps exist between VWFA and the Lateral Occipital Complex, an area for object selectivity.
- Specialization can be category specific (e.g., face recognition) or process specific (e.g., letter perception).
How We Process Words and Reading
- Physical interaction with the environment contributes to visual processing.
- The brain is not composed of isolated modules but receives constant feedback.
- Integration across sensory and motor systems is crucial.
Experiment Results
- The experiment investigated the effects of sensori-motor training on visual processing.
- Two groups of participants were trained: visual only (reading/identifying) and visual+motor (identifying+copying letters).
- The sensori-motor group showed increased activation in the left fusiform gyrus during letter perception after training, compared to the visual only group.
- The right anterior fusiform gyrus was also activated in the sensori-motor group after training.
Discussion on Experiment Findings
- Hemispheric differences exist in letter vs. shape perception, even in pre-literate children.
- The anterior left fusiform gyrus is more activated for letters than shapes or pseudo-letters.
- The right fusiform has similar activation for letters, shapes, and pseudo-letters.
- Sensori-motor training increased activation in visual areas.
- The act of saying a word aloud is also a motor response; thus, the observed effect may be related to manual motor activity rather than oral motor activity.
Embodied Cognition
- The experiment supports the notion of embodied cognition, emphasizing the active role of the perceiver in shaping their cognitive experience.
- The research suggests that the brain is not a passive receiver of information but actively interacts with the environment.
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Description
This quiz explores the fascinating processes involved in cerebral cortex development, including neuronal migration, synaptic pruning, and differentiation of brain regions. Delve into the ongoing debates about nature versus nurture in cortical differentiation and understand how neuronal circuits adapt over time. Test your knowledge on these crucial aspects of brain development.
