Spatial organization of cortical electrical activity at different stages of a visual set in preschool and early school age

Parameters of the formation of a visual nonverbal set and the rate of its replacement with a new set were compared in children of three age groups: 5–6, 6–7, and 9–10 years. The vast majority of subjects (27 of 30 preschool children and 42 of 43 third-grade children) showed clear set effects. Age-related differences in set plasticity and the dynamics of reaction times to test stimuli were observed. The set was more rigid in children aged 5–6 years than in older children. Differences in the dynamics of the spatial organization of alpha and theta activity were seen in the anterior areas of the cortex at different stages of the set in children of different age groups. Analysis of cortical potentials coherence functions and behavioral parameters led to the hypothesis that the frontothalamic selective attention system and the corticohippocampal connection system responsible for the cortical processing of new visual information and episodic memory function are involved in organizing the visual set. A critical age (from six to seven years) was indentified in the formation of plastic types of visual nonverbal sets.