Learning to consider another person’s perspective is pivotal in early social development. Still, little is known about the neural underpinnings involved in perspective-taking in early childhood. In this EEG study, we examined 4-year-old children’s brain activity during a live, social interaction that involved perspective-taking. Children were asked to pass one of two toys to another person. To decide which toy to pass, they had to consider either their partner’s perspective (perspective-taking) or visual features unrelated to their partner’s perspective (control). We analyzed power changes in midfrontal and temporal-parietal EEG channels. The results indicated that children showed higher power around 7 Hz at right temporal-parietal channels for perspective-taking compared to control trials. This power difference was positively correlated with children’s perspective-taking performance, specifically for trials in which they needed to pass the toy their partner could not see. A similar power difference at right temporal-parietal channels was seen when comparing perspective-taking trials where children’s visual access mismatched rather than matched that of their partner. No differences were detected for midfrontal channels. In sum, we identified distinct neural activity as 4-year-olds considered another person’s perspective in a live interaction; this activity converges with neural findings of adults’ social processing network.

中文翻译：

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幼儿时期观点采择的神经相关性

学会考虑他人的观点对于早期社会发展至关重要。尽管如此，人们对幼儿时期观点采择所涉及的神经基础知之甚少。在这项脑电图研究中，我们检查了 4 岁儿童在涉及换位思考的现场社交互动中的大脑活动。孩子们被要求将两个玩具中的一个传递给另一个人。为了决定传递哪个玩具，他们必须考虑伙伴的视角（视角采择）或与伙伴的视角无关的视觉特征（控制）。我们分析了中额叶和颞顶叶脑电图通道的功率变化。结果表明，与对照试验相比，儿童在右侧颞顶叶通道的 7 Hz 左右表现出更高的换位能力。这种权力差异与儿童的换位思考表现呈正相关，特别是在他们需要传递伴侣看不到的玩具的试验中。在比较换位思考试验时，在儿童的视觉访问与伴侣的视觉访问不匹配而不是匹配的情况下，右侧颞顶叶通道也出现了类似的功率差异。额中通道没有检测到差异。总而言之，我们发现了当 4 岁儿童在现场互动中考虑他人观点时的独特神经活动；这项活动与成人社会处理网络的神经发现相一致。