Little is known about the effects of environmental
enrichment on psychophysiological measures of arousal and
orienting in humans. This study tests the hypothesis that
early educational and health enrichment is associated with
long-term increases in psychophysiological orienting and
arousal. One hundred children were experimentally assigned
to a two-year enriched nursery school intervention at ages
3–5 years and matched at age 3 years on psychophysiological
measures, gender, and ethnicity to 100 comparisons who
received the normal educational experience. Children were
retested 6–8 years later at age 11 years on skin
conductance (SC) and electroencephalogram (EEG) measures
of arousal and attention during pre- and postexperimental
rest periods and during the continuous performance task.
Nursery enrichment was associated with increased SC amplitudes,
faster SC rise times, faster SC recovery times, and less
slow-wave EEG during both rest and CPT conditions. This
is believed to be the first study to show that early environmental
enrichment is associated with long-term increases in psychophysiological
orienting and arousal in humans. Results draw attention
to the important influence of the early environment in
shaping later psychophysiological functioning.