| 摘要: | 本論文指稱的「學齡前階段」，特指4~6歲兒童開始在幼稚園接受大量認知學習的時期。過去研究顯示，執行功能在學齡前階段有顯著的進展。眼動抑制能力亦是執行功能的一環，卻鮮少有研究探討學齡前兒童眼動抑制能力的發展和特性。每天從視覺輸入的訊息很多，兒童究竟如何抑制不必要的眼動，進而將注意力放在當下的學習上，眼動抑制能力皆扮演一個重要的角色。發展性研究顯示，眼動抑制能力會隨著發展而有顯著進步，直到青少年階段前額葉功能發展成熟後才停止。在成人研究上也顯示，眼動抑制能力除了會受到年齡因素調控外，目標出現類型的機率和視覺標的物等，亦會調節受試者的眼動抑制表現。另一方面，相關性研究亦指出，眼動抑制能力和智力及執行功能 (如：衝動控制和衝突解決能力) 皆有顯著的高度相關。然而學齡前兒童的眼動抑制能力是否會受到這些特性的影響，目前尚未有通盤的瞭解。 本研究將以順向和反向眼動跳視作業量化兒童的眼動抑制表現，並以不同的實驗操弄探究兒童眼動抑制的特性。本研究共有四個實驗：(1)實驗一操弄順向和反向眼動類型的機率，探究機率如何調控兒童的抑制表現。(2)實驗二操弄視覺標的物的有無，探究視覺標的物如何影響兒童的抑制能力。另外，實驗二亦將42位兒童分成4歲、5歲和6歲組，以瞭解學齡前階段兒童的眼動抑制發展曲線；並收集13位成人的抑制表現，以比較學齡前兒童和成人的表現差異。(3)實驗三驗證競爭模型和注意力再次攫取假說，探討哪一個假說能解釋視覺標的物對抑制表現的影響歷程。(4)實驗四比較42位孩童在五項作業表現之間的相關性，包括：順向和反向眼動跳視作業、停止信號作業、注意力網絡作業、瑞文氏圖型推理測驗、魏氏學齡前兒童智力測驗。 本研究發現，眼動抑制能力在學齡前階段亦有顯著的進步。學齡前兒童的眼動抑制表現亦會受到目標類型機率和視覺標的物的影響，當反向眼動跳視出現的機率越高，或加上一個視覺標的物在目標出現的相反位置上，皆能增進兒童抑制表現的正確率並減少抑制所需的反應時間。另一方面，眼動抑制能力亦和智力及衝動控制能力有顯著的高度相關，智力分數越高或衝動控制表現越好的兒童，越可能有較佳的眼動抑制表現。 In this study, children among the ages of four to six years were called preschool stage. At preschool stage, children usually went to kindergarten and began to learn lots of knowledge. Past studies have indicated that executive function has a significant improvement in preschool period. Oculomotor inhibition is one of the crucial abilities of executive function, but few studies have investigated the development and the characteristics of oculomotor inhibition in preschool children. A vast amount of information is received through visual pathways every day. Oculomotor inhibition plays an important role in suppressing an unnecessary eye-movement, and concentrating on learning. Many developmental studies have indicated that oculomotor inhibition will improve with age until the prefrontal lobe function becomes mature in adolescence. Moreover, this ability may be modulated by several factors, such as trial type probability and visual landmark etc. Oculomotor inhibition also has reported to have a significant correlation with intelligence or other executive functions, including impulsive control and conflict resolution. However, how these factors influencing oculomotor inhibition in preschool children are still unclear. In this study, a version of children pro-/anti-saccade task was conducted to gauge the development of oculomotor inhibition, and several factors were manipulated to investigate the characteristics of oculomotor inhibition in preschool children. There were four experiments: (1) Three trial type probabilities were manipulated to investigate how this factor modulating inhibitory control. (2) A visual landmark was added to examine how this factor benefits the inhibitory control. Furthermore, four age groups, including 4y, 5y, 6y and young adults, were recruited to understand the developmental changes of oculomotor inhibition and to compare the inhibitory differences between preschool children and adults. (3) Two hypotheses of competition model and attentional re-allocation were testified to investigate which one can explain the inhibitory mechanism when adding a visual landmark. (4) Two correlational analyses were conducted to understand the relationships between oculomotor inhibition, impulsive control (measured by stop-signal task) and conflict resolution (measured by attentional network task), and to investigate the associations between oculomotor inhibition and intelligence (measured by WPPSI-R and Ravens). We found that oculomotor inhibition has a gradual but significant development in preschool period. This ability may be improved when there are higher probability of anti-saccade trials or when adding a visual landmark in the opposite direction of the target. Moreover, oculomotor inhibition has significant correlations with intelligence, especially with fluid intelligence, and with impulsive control. Children with higher intelligence quotient scores or with better impulsive control may have better oculomotor inhibition in preschool period. |
