Self - / Mother - Reference Effect Of Pre - School Children And Their ERP Research

Numerous studies have demonstrated that there is a processing bias existing in the human brain toward self-related information rather than other-related information, such as one’s own face and name. Self-related information, due to its high social/adaptive value, seems to have a preferential access to our attentional resources (the cocktail party effect) and memory system (self-reference effect).Most previous researches about children’s self reference effect has focused on the occurrence and development of the very effect, and it is common that the self reference effect can reflect the development of children’s self-concept. However, the following issues haven’t been explored:l.Are there any differences in children’s self awareness in different social structure (such as partner relationship, mother-child relationship)?2. What role does the mother play in the children’s self-concept, and can different kinds of children show different mother reference effect? In addition, although more age-appropriate paradigm is being developed, few studies have used ERP technology to clearly display the dynamic changes of children’s self and other (mother) reference processing, which question is very important according to the Social-Psychological-Physiological model about individual development.On the basis of previous studies, our pioneering study pays attention to preschool children’s mother reference processing, what’s more, we involved children left in the rural areas, for their mothers was working in cites. We expect children’s performance in the self/other-referent ownership task can reflect the bonds between self and mother. In study2, ERP technology was used to explore the dynamic changes of children’s self/other (mother) reference processing.With the ownership paradigm, twenty rural non-left-behind children and nineteen left-behind children participated in Study1, and two tasks were involved. One is self/mother referent ownership task, the other is self/stranger referent ownership task.As for the number of free recall, the main findings are:(1) only in the non-left-behind children, the average of mother-reference score is greater than the average of self-reference (self/mother task) score; the average of mother-reference score is greater than the average of stranger-reference score; the average of self-reference score in self/mother task is lower than the average of self-reference score in self/stranger task;(2) for the mother reference conditions, the performance of non-left behind group was significantly better than the left behind group;(3) for the self reference condition in self/stranger task, non-left behind group tends to perform better than the left behind group.As for the number of correct source-monitoring judgments:(1) In non-left behind group, the average of mother-reference score is greater than the average of self-reference (self/mother task) score; the average of self-reference score in self/mother task is lower than the average of self-reference score in self/stranger task.(2) In left behind group, the average of mother-reference score is greater than the average of self-reference (self/mother task) score.Study2requires children (non-left behind ones) to classify the object according to the ownership cues. The results found that:(1) the P300component which is related to attention resources distribution was bigger evoked in mother-reference condition than self-reference (self/mother task) condition; In the left and right hemisphere, as well as midline areas, both the frontal and central areas are larger activated than the parietal area; no significant difference between the frontal and central areas was found;(2) No difference between stranger-reference condition and self-reference condition(self/stranger task); central areas is greater activated than the frontal and parietal regions; no significant difference between the frontal and parietal areas was found; the degree of right hemisphere activation is greater than the left hemisphere and the midline, there was no significant difference between the left hemisphere and the midline. The later findings may suggest that the representation of self shares the same brain structure and function with the representation of others, especially in right hemisphere.In conclusion, there is some differences in Self/Mother reference memory between children left in the rural areas and formal children. What’s more, mother-relevant attention effects triggered by ownership clues indicate that the concept of mother is very strong. Our findings may provide some information for the culture of a good parent-child relationship of children left in the rural areas.