Contextual adaptation of cognitive flexibility in kindergartners and fourth graders.

This study investigated the development of children's ability to find the optimal balance between flexibility and stability as a function of the frequency of required task switches. This question was addressed in two situations contrasting the dynamics of engagement of reconfiguration processes (reactive vs. proactive). A cued task-switching paradigm was presented to kindergartners and fourth graders, who are known to differ in their preferential mode of control engagement. Flexibility adaptation was examined through the modulation of switching costs by switch proportion, the so-called list-wide switch proportion (LWSP) effect. When the situation forced the use of reactive control (Experiment 1: simultaneous presentation of the cue and the stimulus), we found the LWSP effect with a greater magnitude in kindergartners than in fourth graders. In the situation inducing proactive control (Experiment 2: task cue presented before and until the stimulus), flexibility adaptation was obtained when error rates were considered but not response times. By demonstrating that even young children are capable of flexibility adaptation to contextual demands, these findings support the hypothesis that implicitly triggered adaptation of control may develop as early as the end of the preschool years despite the immaturity of cognitive control during this period.

Cognitive mechanisms underlying free recall in episodic memory performance across the lifespan: testing the control/representation model.

Episodic memory (EM) develops up to early adulthood, and declines in aging, following an inverted U-shaped profile. This study assessed the contribution of both Control (processes enabling adaptive and flexible behaviour in line with current goals) and Representation (crystallized schemas involved in memory and general knowledge) as factors likely to underlie this pattern of change. We hypothesized that these two cognitive resources are differentially involved in EM performance across development and aging. Participants from 8 to 80 years were administered a free-recall task and tests measuring control and representation. Results show that EM and control scores follow an inverted U-shaped profile (i.e., quadratic relationship), whereas representation increases across the lifespan. EM was associated with representation at all ages, while it was associated with control only in the youngest children and in the adults groups. Representation mainly contributed to age-related difference in EM performance across development. Across aging, control, and to a lesser extent, representation, accounted for EM performance decline. These results showed that EM development and decline do not depend on the same cognitive resources, increased representation being crucial for EM development, and a decline in control with advancing age being responsible for the age-related change in EM performance.

Children's gist-based false memory in working memory tasks.

False memories are well established episodic memory phenomena. Recent research in young adults has shown that semantically related associates can be falsely remembered as studied items in working memory (WM) tasks for lists of only a few items when a short 4-second interval was given between study and test. The present study reported two experiments yielding similar effects in 4- (n = 32 and 33, 18 and 14 females, respectively) and 8-year-old children (n = 33 and 34, respectively, 19 females in both). Short lists of semantically related items specifically tailored for young children were retained over a brief interval. Whether or not the interval was filled with a concurrent task that impeded or not WM maintenance, younger children were as prone to falsely recognize related distractors as their older counterparts in an immediate recognition test, and also in a delayed test. In addition, using the conjoint recognition model of the fuzzy-trace theory, we demonstrated that the retrieval of gist traces of the list themes was responsible for the occurrence of short-term false memories in 4- and 8-year-old children. Gist memory also underpinned the occurrence of false recognition in the delayed test. These findings suggest that young children are as likely to make gist-based false memories as older children in working memory tasks. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Developmental changes in impulse control: Trial-by-trial EMG dissociates the evolution of impulse strength from its subsequent suppression.

Goal-oriented behavior can be disrupted by irrelevant information that automatically activates incorrect responses. While behavioral errors reveal response capture in such situations, they are only the tip of the iceberg. Additional subliminal activations of the incorrect responses (partial errors) can be revealed on correctly responded trials thanks to electromyography (EMG). In the current study, for the first time, EMG recorded in children was combined with distributional analyses. This allowed to investigate the properties of incorrect response activations and to highlight developmental changes in impulse control. A sample of 114 children aged 6-14 years was studied. Children performed a Simon task in which the irrelevant stimulus-position automatically activates a response that might be compatible or incompatible with the correct one. On incompatible trials, the automatic response activation must be overcome by controlled response selection. As previously observed in adults, our approach revealed the presence of an automatic EMG activation of the incorrect response elicited by the irrelevant stimulus dimension. Further, it revealed another independent source at the origin of incorrect response activations: the tendency to guess for response alternation. Both sources increased the frequency of early incorrect EMG activations, indicating impulsive responding. In addition, the influence of both sources decreased with increasing age. Thus, development is marked by improved ability to manage distractibility on the one hand and decreased tendency to rely on a guessing strategy on the other.

A multidimensional evaluation of the benefits of an ecologically realistic training based on pretend play for preschoolers' cognitive control and self-regulation: From behavior to the underlying theta neuro-oscillatory activity.

To what extent can cognitive control, self-regulation, and the underlying midfrontal theta oscillatory activity of preschool children be modified by an ecologically realistic training based on pretend play? To answer this question, 70 children aged 4-6 years (37 boys) were assigned to a training group or a control group using a pairing randomization procedure. Children were administered 20 play sessions over 10 weeks. Benefits were evaluated with a pre-post design. The intervention helped children to engage more in self-regulation within the training activities. However, the intervention did not promote self-regulation outside of the training context, nor did it influence cognitive control and theta activity. These results provide a better understanding of the limitations of an ecologically realistic approach to cognitive control training.

Do goal cue and motor activity impact preschoolers' working memory?

Preschoolers are well known for their poor working memory (WM) performance. This could result from goal neglect, which would hamper the setting of maintenance strategies. Previous studies have shown that preschoolers' WM performance can be improved in game-like tasks, because they provide cues to support goal maintenance. However, in these studies, it was unclear what features of the task (either the main toy or the motor activity required by the game) provide efficient cues. The aim of the present study was to disentangle the two features to examine cue effects in 5- to 7-year-old children. No improvement of WM performance was observed when the toy was a potential goal cue, whereas the motor activity had a detrimental effect in all age groups. The latter effect could result from a distraction of attention from attention-based maintenance activities. Hence, preschoolers' poor WM performance would not be fundamentally due to goal neglect.

Age-related changes in controllable and uncontrollable processes underlying evaluative conditioning: A comparison between children ages 7 to 11 and young adults.

Evaluative conditioning (EC) refers to a change in liking of a conditioned stimulus (CS) consecutive to its repeated pairing with a valent unconditioned stimulus (US). We relied on a multinomial processing tree model to compare the processes underlying EC in middle-aged children (n = 57, Mage = 8.65, range = 6.94-11.03; 31 females) and young adults (n = 57, Mage = 19.16, range = 17.60-23.60; 53 females). We found that controllable and uncontrollable valence transfer processes concurrently contributed to EC in adults and provided initial evidence that they are already present in children. Moreover, the experiment revealed that both types of processes are weaker in children than in adults and that controllable processes are stronger in older children than in younger ones. These findings suggest that both controllable and uncontrollable processes already underlie EC in middle-aged children but that they continue to mature after childhood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Speeding-up while growing-up: Synchronous functional development of motor and non-motor processes across childhood and adolescence.

Describing the maturation of information processing in children is fundamental for developmental science. Although non-linear changes in reaction times have been well-documented, direct measurement of the development of the different processing components is lacking. In this study, electromyography was used to quantify the maturation of premotor and motor processes on a sample of 114 children (6-14 years-old) and 15 adults. Using a model-based approach, we show that the development of these two components is well-described by an exponential decrease in duration, with the decay rate being equal for the two components. These findings provide the first unbiased evidence in favour of the common developmental rate of nonmotor and motor processes by directly confronting rates of development of different processing components within the same task. This common developmental rate contrasts with the differential physical maturation of region-specific cerebral gray and white matter. Tentative paths of interpretation are proposed in the discussion.

Preschoolers are capable of fine-grained implicit cognitive control: Evidence from development of the context-specific proportion congruency effect.

Whereas much of the developmental literature has focused on the difficulties of young children in regulating their behavior, an increasing base of evidence suggests that children may be capable of surprisingly flexible engagement of cognitive control when based on implicit experience with the situation. One of the most fine-grained examples of implicit cognitive control in adults is the context-specific proportion congruency (CSPC) effect-the finding that interference in a conflict task is reduced for stimuli that are presented in a context (e.g., a spatial location) where stimuli are generally incongruent. Can such a subtle modulation of control be observed in children? In Experiment 1 (N = 180), we showed that this effect exists in preschoolers for two different types of context manipulation and that its magnitude is at least as large as in older children. In Experiment 2 (N = 40), we confirmed that the effect transfers to unbiased stimuli, indicating that it is not attributable to contingency learning of stimulus-response associations and can be taken to actually reflect cognitive control. These results support the possibility that implicit cognitive control (implemented without explicit intentions and without requiring subject awareness) can be functionally distinct from explicit control and that even very young children can implement fine-grained cognitive control when it is based on implicit cues.

Stronger impulse capture and impaired inhibition of prepotent action in children with ADHD performing a Simon task: An electromyographic study.

OBJECTIVE: A deficit in interference control is commonly reported in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This has mainly been interpreted as a difficulty in inhibiting inappropriate responses. However, it could be due to at least two distinct and independent processes, which are often confounded: The activation or suppression of impulsive responses. The aim of the present study was to separate the contribution of these two processes. METHOD: We compared performance of 26 children with ADHD to that of 26 nonADHD children using a novel approach based on electromyographic activity (EMG) analysis. EMG allows two distinct indices to be computed: Incorrect activation rate, which is an index of the intensity of impulse capture and correction rate, which provides a direct measure of the ability to suppress automatic responses. RESULTS: Children with ADHD were slower, committed more errors, and had a larger interference effect than nonADHD children. Moreover, we observed a greater incorrect activation rate and a lower correction rate in the ADHD group. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that the difficulties in interference control found in children with ADHD are explained by both impaired inhibitory processes and a greater propensity to activate automatic responses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Learning-based before intentional cognitive control: Developmental evidence for a dissociation between implicit and explicit control.

Cognitive control can be triggered by explicit or implicit events; it has been proposed that these two possibilities tap into dissociable mechanisms. In this study, we investigate this idea by testing whether young children, who struggle with explicitly triggered control, can demonstrate proportion congruency effects-which are based on implicit learning of task regularities and thus indicative of implicitly triggered control. In a series of five experiments, preschoolers indeed demonstrated significant proportion congruency effects, including both list-wide proportion congruency (LWPC) and item-specific proportion congruency (ISPC) effects, in a Stroop-like task and in a flanker task. These effects did not increase with age, contrary to what is typically observed for explicit control. These results demonstrate that young children show early evidence of cognitive control-including proactive control-when it is triggered by implicit events, at an age where explicit control, and particularly proactive control, is not yet functional. By showing evidence of an early ability for fine-grained adjustments of cognitive control when control cues are learned implicitly, these results support the proposed functional dissociation between explicit and implicit cognitive control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The dynamics of interference control across childhood and adolescence: Distribution analyses in three conflict tasks and ten age groups.

Interference control is central to cognitive control and, more generally, to many aspects of development. Despite its importance, the understanding of the processes underlying mean interference effects across development is still limited. When measured through conflict tasks, mean interference effects reflect both the strength of the initial automatic incorrect response activation by the irrelevant stimulus dimension and the capacity to subsequently suppress this tendency and/or activate the correct response. To investigate the development of interference control, we focused on the time course of these activation and/or suppression processes studied in 360 children distributed in 10 age groups (from 5 to 14 years of age) and 36 adults. Each participant performed the 3 mostly used conflict tasks (Simon, flanker, and Stroop) designed to be sensitive across the whole age range. Performances were analyzed using distribution analyses of accuracy and response times. Conditional accuracy functions highlighted conflict-dependent developmental changes in the time course of the initial incorrect response capture and later controlled correct response activation: These results revealed a mature pattern for Simon from 5 years onward (the easiest task as assessed by fastest reaction time and highest accuracy), late maturation in Stroop (the most difficult task), intermediate in flanker. In contrast, despite the increased speed of responses across the age range, the shape of correct response distributions did not change with age, leaving open the maturation of suppression processes. Results are discussed with respect to the interest of the methodology used and debates on the interpretation of the dynamics at hand. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The role of midfrontal theta oscillations across the development of cognitive control in preschoolers and school-age children.

The development of cognitive control enables children to better resist acting based on distracting information that interferes with the current action. Cognitive control improvement serves different functions that differ in part by the type of interference to resolve. Indeed, resisting to interference at the task-set level or at the response-preparation level is, respectively, associated with cognitive flexibility and inhibition. It is, however, unknown whether the same neural mechanism underlies these two functions across development. Studies in adults have revealed the contribution of midfrontal theta (MFT) oscillations in interference resolution. This study investigated whether MFT is involved in the resolution of different types of interference in two age groups identified as corresponding to different latent structures of executive functions. Preschool (4-6 years) and school children (6-8 years) were tested with a task involving interference at the response level and/or the task-set level while (electroencephalogram) EEG was recorded. Behaviorally, response time and accuracy were affected by task-set. Both age groups were less accurate when the interference occurred at the task-set level and only the younger group showed decreased accuracy when interference was presented at the response-preparation level. Furthermore, MFT power was increased, relative to the baseline, during the resolution of both types of interference and in both age groups. These findings suggest that MFT is involved in immature cognitive control (i.e., preschool and school-ages), by orchestrating its different cognitive processes, irrespective of the interference to resolve and of the level of cognitive control development (i.e., the degree of differentiation of executive functions).

Inhibiting errors while they are produced: Direct evidence for error monitoring and inhibitory control in children.

The maturation of processes involved in performance monitoring, crucial for adaptive behavior, is a core aspect of developmental changes. Monitoring processes are often studied through the analysis of error processing. Previous developmental studies generally focused on post-error slowing and error-related EEG activities. Instead, the present study aims at collecting indicators of error monitoring processes occurring within trials that is, before the erroneous response is produced. Electromyographic (EMG) activity and force produced during responding were registered in 6 to 14-year-olds performing a choice-response task. As already reported in adults, force produced was weaker, EMG bursts were smaller, and motor times (interval between EMG onsets and responses) were longer during errors compared to correct responses. In contrast, the rising part of EMG burst, reflecting the initial motor command, was the same for both response outcomes. This suggests that error inhibition was applied online after the response was triggered but before the actual key was pressed. This error correction was already present in children as young as 6 years old. The effects of reduced EMG and force amplitudes remained stable across childhood. However, the prolonged motor times in young children suggests that they need more time to implement motor inhibition than their older peers.

Five-Year-Old Children's Working Memory Can Be Improved When Children Act On A Transparent Goal Cue.

Working memory is a key component of human cognition and its development throughout childhood a major predictor of cognitive development and school achievement. Noticeably, preschoolers exhibit poor performance in working memory tasks. The present study aimed at testing different means to improve working memory performance in preschoolers. To this aim, we tested the effect of abstract and transparent goal cues in a Brown-Peterson task performed by 4- and 5-year-old preschoolers. If the transparent goal cue helps to better maintain the instructions, it should lead to better memory performance. Moreover, preschoolers had to track, either visually or with their fingers, the goal cue during the retention interval. If the motor activity favors the active engagement of the children in the task, the finger tracking should lead to improvement in memory performance. Our findings were that 5-year-old children benefitted from a transparent goal cue when they acted on it, while 4-year-old children did not show any improvement. These results suggest that working memory performance can be improved in 5-year-old children when the task embeds elements that can scaffold the task goal.

The role of goal cueing in kindergarteners' working memory.

Goal neglect has been shown to contribute to kindergarteners' poor executive control. Hence, presenting goal cues during a task improves children's performance in inhibition and switching tasks. The current study aimed at extending these findings to working memory (WM) by examining the extent to which kindergarteners' poor WM performance can result from neglecting the goal to recall memoranda at the end of the retention interval. This question was addressed by introducing goal cues, either visual (Experiments 1 and 2a) or auditory-verbal (Experiment 2b), during the retention interval in a Brown-Peterson task. Results showed no evidence of recall improvement for any cue. However, kindergarteners rehearsed more often in the presence of a visual goal cue, whereas recall was impaired with the presentation of an auditory-verbal goal cue. This suggests that introducing a goal cue in the retention interval of a WM task triggers the use of rehearsal in kindergarteners, albeit without any benefit in WM performance. This contrasts sharply with findings on other executive control tasks. Reasons why goal cues failed to improve kindergarteners' WM performance are discussed.

Evidencing the developmental shift from reactive to proactive control in early childhood and its relationship to working memory.

As they age, children tend to get more effective at regulating their behavior in complex situations; this improvement in cognitive control is often interpreted as a shift from predominantly reactive control to proactive control. There are three issues with this interpretation. First, hard evidence is lacking that younger children actually rely on reactive control. Second, the precise age range when such a shift would occur is still unclear. Third, the reasons for this shift have not been explored. In the current study, we tested the hypothesis that children under 5 years of age do rely on reactive control, that they progressively shift to proactive control with age, and that this shift is related to increases in working memory capacity (which is necessary for proactive control). Children aged 4 to 7 years performed a cognitive control task, the AX-CPT (AX-Continuous Performance Task), as well as verbal and visuospatial working memory tasks. Using the paradigmatic AX-CPT in this age range allowed us to observe, for the first time, an actual reactive pattern in children under 5 years of age. There was a progressive shift from reactive control to proactive control, with an estimated turning point between 5 and 6 years of age. The effect of age on proactive control was essentially shared with working memory capacity, confirming that these two cognitive processes develop in tandem.

Conflict processing in kindergarten children: New evidence from distribution analyses reveals the dynamics of incorrect response activation and suppression.

The development of cognitive control is known to follow a long and protracted development. However, whether the interference effect in conflict tasks in children would entail the same core processes as in adults, namely an automatic activation of incorrect response and its subsequent suppression, remains an open question. We applied distributional analyses to reaction times and accuracy of 5- and 6-year-old children performing three conflict tasks (flanker, Simon, and Stroop) in a within-participants design. This revealed both strong commonalities and differences between children and adults. As in adults, fast responses were more error prone than slow ones on incompatible trials, indicating a fast "automatic" activation of the incorrect response. In addition, the strength of this activation differed across tasks, following a pattern similar to that of adults. Moreover, modeling the data with a drift diffusion model adapted for conflict tasks allowed one to better assess the origin of the typical slowing down observed in children. Besides showing that advanced distribution analyses can be successfully applied to children, the current results support the notion that interference effects in 5- and 6-year-olds are driven by mechanisms very similar to the ones at play in adults but with different time courses.

From prioritizing objects to prioritizing cues: a developmental shift for cognitive control.

Emerging cognitive control supports increasingly adaptive behaviors and predicts life success, while low cognitive control is a major risk factor during childhood. It is therefore essential to understand how it develops. The present study provides evidence for an age-related shift in the type of information that children prioritize in their environment, from objects that can be directly acted upon to cues signaling how to act. Specifically, gaze patterns recorded while 3- to 12-year-olds and adults engaged in a cognitive control task showed that whereas younger children fixated on targets that they needed to respond to before gazing at task cues signaling how to respond, older children and adults showed the opposite pattern (which yielded better performance). This shift in information prioritization has important conceptual implications, suggesting that a major force behind cognitive control development may be non-executive in nature, as well as opening new directions for interventions.

Do Young Children Modulate Their Cognitive Control?

Dynamic, trial-by-trial modulations of inhibitory control are well documented in adults but rarely investigated in children. Here, we examined whether 5-to-7 year-old children, an age range when inhibitory control is still partially immature, achieve such modulations. Fifty three children took flanker, Simon, and Stroop tasks. Above and beyond classic congruency effects, the present results showed two crucial findings. First, we found evidence for sequential modulations of congruency effects in these young children in the three conflict tasks. Second, our results showed both task specificities and task commonalities. These findings in young children have important implications as they suggest that, to be modulated, inhibitory control does not require full maturation and that the precise pattern of trial-by-trial modulations may depend on the nature of conflict.