Abstract
Our capacity to derive meaning from things that we see and words that we hear is unparalleled in other animal species and current AI systems. Despite a wealth of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies on where different semantic features are processed in the adult brain, the development of these systems in children is poorly understood. Here we conducted an extensive database search and identified 50 fMRI experiments investigating semantic world knowledge, semantic relatedness judgments, and the differentiation of visual semantic object categories in children (total N = 1,018, mean age = 10.1 years, range 4–15 years). Synthesizing the results of these experiments, we found consistent activation in the bilateral inferior frontal gyri (IFG), fusiform gyri (FG), and supplementary motor areas (SMA), as well as in the left middle and superior temporal gyri (MTG/STG). Within this system, we found little evidence for age-related changes across childhood and high overlap with the adult semantic system. In sum, the identification of these cortical areas provides the starting point for further research on the mechanisms by which the developing brain learns to make sense of its environment.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Footnotes
The data and code for this study are openly available at https://osf.io/34ry2/. We have no conflict of interest to disclose. There were no ethical concerns since we did not collect any new data.