Brain, Digital, & Learning

 Open access, Peer Reviewed

Indexed in KCI

pISSN 2384-2474
eISSN 2586-7490

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Analysis of Korean Children’s Developmental Pattern on the Social Brain Related to Mentalization Ability: An fNIRS Study

1Gongju National University of Education
2Korea National University of Education

Correspondence to kwonyj@knue.ac.kr

Brain, Digital, & Learning. Volume 11, Number 4, 703–712, December 2021. https://doi.org/10.31216/BDL.20210045
Received on December 25, 2021, Revised on December 29, 2021, Accepted on December 29, 2021, Published on December 31, 2021.
Copyright © 2021. Institute of Brain based Education, Korea National University of Education This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

This study investigated the Korean children’s developmental pattern of the social brain related to mentalization ability. For this study, a mentalization task and the prefrontal brain activity measurement using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) were administered to a total of 163 subjects in kindergarten, elementary school, and middle school. As the result, there was a significant difference in the mentalization ability score among preschoolers, lower elementary students, upper elementary students, and middle school students. However, there was no significant difference between the upper elementary and middle school students in the mentalization ability score. As a result of correlation analysis between the mentalization performance and brain activity, it was shown a significant correlation in the right hemisphere orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and the left hemisphere dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Specifically, the correlation was analyzed as a positive correlation with the OFC and a negative correlation with the DLPFC. These results provide quantitative analysis information by taking a cross-sectional approach to the children’s developmental pattern on the social brain and mentalization ability in kindergarten, lower elementary, upper elementary, and middle school students. This study might be provide an alternative educational implication to children’s development on social brain and mentalization.
Keywords

Social brain, mentalization, brain development, children, fNIRS, OFC, DLPFC

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