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A Within-subjects Experimental Protocol to Assess the Effects of Social Input on Infant EEG
Published on: May 3, 2017
Socioeconomic status and the developing brain
Daniel A Hackman1, Martha J Farah
1Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, 3720 Walnut Street, Room B51, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6241, USA. dhackman@psych.upenn.edu
Abstract:
Childhood socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with cognitive achievement throughout life. How does SES relate to brain development, and what are the mechanisms by which SES might exert its influence? We review studies in which behavioral, electrophysiological and neuroimaging methods have been used to characterize SES disparities in neurocognitive function. These studies indicate that SES is an important predictor of neurocognitive performance, particularly of language and executive function, and that SES differences are found in neural processing even when performance levels are equal. Implications for basic cognitive neuroscience and for understanding and ameliorating the problems related to childhood poverty are discussed.
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