Somatosensory prediction in the premature neonate brain

Predictive coding and attention in developmental cognitive neuroscience and perspectives for neurodevelopmental disorders

Sensory prediction and repetition suppression are closely related cognitive mechanisms that allow the brain to form predictions about the environment, and guide perception in synergy with attention. Predictive coding is a theory of the fundamental role of predictive mechanisms in brain functions. Authors have proposed a central role of predictive impairments in autism and possibly other neurodevelopmental disorders. However, little is known about predictive mechanisms in typical development, and how they co-develop with attention. Here we review experimental support for predictive coding and its links with attention in healthy adults' brains, the first experimental works performed in typically developing children and infants, and theoretical accounts of neurodevelopmental disorders using a predictive coding framework. We propose future directions for predictive coding research in development. Finally, we describe the first predictive coding experiments in neonates and provide research perspectives for using this framework in searching for early markers of atypical neurodevelopment.

Infants' top-down perceptual modulation is specific to own-race faces

Recent studies have revealed the influence of higher-level cognitive systems in modulating perceptual processing (top-down perceptual modulation) in infancy. However, more research is needed to understand how top-down processes in infant perception contribute to early perceptual development. To this end, this study examined infants' top-down perception of own- and other-race faces to reveal whether top-down modulation is linked to the emergence of perceptual specialization. Infants first learned an association between a sound and faces, with the race of the faces manipulated between groups (own race vs. other race). We then tested infants' face perception across various levels of perceptual difficulty (manipulated by presentation duration) and indexed top-down perception by the change in perception when infants heard the sound previously associated with the face (predictive sound) versus an irrelevant sound. Infants exhibited top-down face perception for own-race faces (Experiment 1). However, we present new evidence that infants did not show evidence of top-down modulation for other-race faces (Experiment 2), suggesting an experience-based specificity of this capacity with more effective top-down modulation in familiar perceptual contexts. In addition, we ruled out the possibility that this face race effect was due to differences in infants' associative learning of the sound and faces between the two groups. This work has important implications for understanding the mechanisms supporting perceptual development and how they relate to top-down perception in infancy.

Visual Perception Is Highly Flexible and Context Dependent in Young Infants: A Case of Top-Down-Modulated Motion Perception

Top-down modulation is an essential cognitive component in human perception. Despite mounting evidence of top-down perceptual modulation in adults, it is largely unknown whether infants can engage in this cognitive function. Here, we examined top-down modulation of motion perception in 6- to 8-month-old infants (recruited in North America) via their smooth-pursuit eye movements. In four experiments, we demonstrated that infants' perception of motion direction can be flexibly shaped by briefly learned predictive cues when no coherent motion is available. The current findings present a novel insight into infant perception and its development: Infant perceptual systems respond to predictive signals engendered from higher-level learning systems, leading to a flexible and context-dependent modulation of perception. This work also suggests that the infant brain is sophisticated, interconnected, and active when placed in a context in which it can learn and predict.

Tactile sensory processing as a precursor of executive attention: Toward early detection of attention impairments and neurodevelopmental disorders

Recent studies in developmental neuroscience tend to show the existence of neural attention networks from birth. Their construction is based on the first sensory experiences that allow us to learn the patterns of the world surrounding us and preserve our limited attentional resources. Touch is the first sensory modality to develop, although it is still little studied in developmental psychology in contrast to distal modalities such as audition or vision. Atypical tactile sensory processing at an early age could predict later attention dysfunction, both of them being part of the symptomatology of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD). We review the state of knowledge on tactile sensory processing and its links with attention, executive attention (EA) in particular, and propose that abnormal tactile sensory processing at an early age could provide markers of EA dysfunctions, contributing to the early detection of NDD. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Attention.