Bootstrapping Conceptual Deduction Using Physical Connection: Rethinking Frontal Cortex

Overview

Journal Trends Cogn Sci

Date 2006 Apr 6

PMID 16584909

Citations 11

Authors

Adele Diamond

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The age at which infants can demonstrate the ability to deduce abstract rules can be reduced by more than half, from 21 months to 9 months. The key is to introduce a physical connection between the items to be conceptually related. I argue here that making the same change in how items are presented might also help some preschoolers with learning delays, especially some children with autism. I also suggest that the roles of premotor and ventrolateral prefrontal cortices in deducing abstract rules might have been misinterpreted behaviorally and anatomically. The crucial brain region may be the periarcuate, which partially overlaps both premotor and lateral prefrontal cortex. The cognitive ability made possible by this region might be something far more elementary than previously considered: the ability to perceive conceptual connections in the absence of physical connection.

Citing Articles

The Effect of Brain Anodal and Cathodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Psychological Refractory Period at Different Stimulus-Onset Asynchrony in Non-Fatigue and Mental Fatigue Conditions.

Hafezi S, Doustan M, Saemi E Brain Sci. 2024; 14(5).

PMID: 38790455 PMC: 11118837. DOI: 10.3390/brainsci14050477.

Functional dissociation of the inferior frontal junction from the dorsal attention network in top-down attentional control.

Tamber-Rosenau B, Asplund C, Marois R J Neurophysiol. 2018; 120(5):2498-2512.

PMID: 30156458 PMC: 6295539. DOI: 10.1152/jn.00506.2018.

Early bilateral and massive compromise of the frontal lobes.

Ibanez A, Zimerman M, Sedeno L, Lori N, Rapacioli M, Cardona J Neuroimage Clin. 2018; 18:543-552.

PMID: 29845003 PMC: 5964834. DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2018.02.026.

Infants' representations of same and different in match- and non-match-to-sample.

Hochmann J, Mody S, Carey S Cogn Psychol. 2016; 86:87-111.

PMID: 26970605 PMC: 4935928. DOI: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2016.01.005.

Cognitive and linguistic sources of variance in 2-year-olds’ speech-sound discrimination: a preliminary investigation.

Lalonde K, Holt R J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2013; 57(1):308-26.

PMID: 24023371 PMC: 5600153. DOI: 10.1044/1092-4388(2013/12-0227).

References

Halsband U, Passingham R . Premotor cortex and the conditions for movement in monkeys (Macaca fascicularis). Behav Brain Res. 1985; 18(3):269-77. DOI: 10.1016/0166-4328(85)90035-x. View

Diamond A . Evidence of robust recognition memory early in life even when assessed by reaching behavior. J Exp Child Psychol. 1995; 59(3):419-56. DOI: 10.1006/jecp.1995.1020. View

Petrides M . Motor conditional associative-learning after selective prefrontal lesions in the monkey. Behav Brain Res. 1982; 5(4):407-13. DOI: 10.1016/0166-4328(82)90044-4. View

Mottron L . Matching strategies in cognitive research with individuals with high-functioning autism: current practices, instrument biases, and recommendations. J Autism Dev Disord. 2004; 34(1):19-27. DOI: 10.1023/b:jadd.0000018070.88380.83. View

Hanakawa T, Honda M, Sawamoto N, Okada T, Yonekura Y, Fukuyama H . The role of rostral Brodmann area 6 in mental-operation tasks: an integrative neuroimaging approach. Cereb Cortex. 2002; 12(11):1157-70. DOI: 10.1093/cercor/12.11.1157. View

Diamond A, TOWLE C, Boyer K . Young children's performance on a task sensitive to the memory functions of the medial temporal lobe in adults--the delayed nonmatching-to-sample task--reveals problems that are due to non-memory-related task demands. Behav Neurosci. 1994; 108(4):659-80. DOI: 10.1037//0735-7044.108.4.659. View

Dawson G, Osterling J, Rinaldi J, Carver L, McPartland J . Brief report: Recognition memory and stimulus-reward associations: indirect support for the role of ventromedial prefrontal dysfunction in autism. J Autism Dev Disord. 2001; 31(3):337-41. DOI: 10.1023/a:1010751404865. View

DeLoache J, Brown A . Very young children's memory for the location of objects in a large-scale environment. Child Dev. 1983; 54(4):888-97. View

Happe . Autism: cognitive deficit or cognitive style?. Trends Cogn Sci. 1999; 3(6):216-222. DOI: 10.1016/s1364-6613(99)01318-2. View

10.

Petrides M . Deficits on conditional associative-learning tasks after frontal- and temporal-lobe lesions in man. Neuropsychologia. 1985; 23(5):601-14. DOI: 10.1016/0028-3932(85)90062-4. View

11.

Luciana M, Nelson C . Assessment of neuropsychological function through use of the Cambridge Neuropsychological Testing Automated Battery: performance in 4- to 12-year-old children. Dev Neuropsychol. 2003; 22(3):595-624. DOI: 10.1207/S15326942DN2203_3. View

12.

Diamond A, Lee E, Hayden M . Early success in using the relation between stimuli and rewards to deduce an abstract rule: perceived physical connection is key. Dev Psychol. 2003; 39(5):825-47. DOI: 10.1037/0012-1649.39.5.825. View

13.

Heiser M, Iacoboni M, Maeda F, Marcus J, Mazziotta J . The essential role of Broca's area in imitation. Eur J Neurosci. 2003; 17(5):1123-8. DOI: 10.1046/j.1460-9568.2003.02530.x. View

14.

Carr L, Iacoboni M, Dubeau M, Mazziotta J, Lenzi G . Neural mechanisms of empathy in humans: a relay from neural systems for imitation to limbic areas. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003; 100(9):5497-502. PMC: 154373. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0935845100. View

15.

Chaminade T, Meltzoff A, Decety J . An fMRI study of imitation: action representation and body schema. Neuropsychologia. 2004; 43(1):115-27. PMC: 3648209. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2004.04.026. View

16.

Fagan 3rd J . Infants' delayed recognition memory and forgetting. J Exp Child Psychol. 1973; 16(3):424-50. DOI: 10.1016/0022-0965(73)90005-2. View

17.

Biro S, Russell J . The execution of arbitrary procedures by children with autism. Dev Psychopathol. 2001; 13(1):97-110. DOI: 10.1017/s0954579401001079. View

18.

Jarvik M . Simple color discrimination in chimpanzees: effect of varying contiguity between cue and incentive. J Comp Physiol Psychol. 1956; 49(5):492-5. DOI: 10.1037/h0045644. View

19.

Toni I, Rushworth M, Passingham R . Neural correlates of visuomotor associations. Spatial rules compared with arbitrary rules. Exp Brain Res. 2001; 141(3):359-69. DOI: 10.1007/s002210100877. View

20.

Jarvik M . Discrimination of colored food and food signs by primates. J Comp Physiol Psychol. 1953; 46(5):390-2. DOI: 10.1037/h0054308. View