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Xiang L, Gao Y, Yang T, Clayson PE, Wang B. Domain-specific control for cognitive and emotional conflict: Evidence from the transfer of proportion congruency effects. Psychophysiology 2024:e14673. [PMID: 39169541 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14673] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2023] [Revised: 06/10/2024] [Accepted: 08/07/2024] [Indexed: 08/23/2024]
Abstract
There is ongoing debate about whether control-related processing related to cognitive conflict and emotional conflict operate independently. This study manipulated the proportion of congruent to incongruent trials to determine the domain specificity or generality of these two types of conflict control. Two experiments were conducted in which spatial Simon conflict was combined with emotional face-word conflict. In Experiment 1, the proportion congruency (PC) of spatial conflict was manipulated, and in Experiment 2, the PC of emotional conflict was manipulated. The aim was to determine whether control-related processes elicited by cognitive or emotional conflict show domain-specific (within cognitive or within emotional control-related effects) or domain-general effects, where control elicited by cognitive conflict benefits emotional control processes and vice versa. Behavioral findings indicated that spatial and emotional conflict exhibited within-domain PC effects. For event-related brain potential (ERP) activity, PC effects were primarily reflected in a late slow potential, rather than an early negativity, suggesting that control-related adjustments impacted conflict resolution rather than conflict detection. Furthermore, the results did not show evidence of PC effects across domains for behavioral or ERP data, indicating that proactive control elicited by PC manipulation does not transfer across cognitive and emotional conflict. This study supports the modular nature of proactive control for processes related to cognitive and emotional control.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ling Xiang
- School of Psychology, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China
| | - Yu Gao
- School of Psychology, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China
| | - Tingting Yang
- School of Psychology, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China
| | | | - Baoxi Wang
- School of Psychology, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China
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Lucenet J, Blaye A. Contextual adaptation of cognitive flexibility in kindergartners and fourth graders. J Exp Child Psychol 2023; 227:105586. [PMID: 36413870 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105586] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2022] [Revised: 10/19/2022] [Accepted: 10/26/2022] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joanna Lucenet
- Laboratoire de Psychologie, EA 4139, University of Bordeaux, 33076 Bordeaux, France.
| | - Agnès Blaye
- Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, UMR CNRS 7290, University of Aix-Marseille, 13331 Marseille, France
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Little fast, little slow, should I stay or should I go? Adapting cognitive control to local-global temporal prediction across typical development. PLoS One 2023; 18:e0281417. [PMID: 36827315 PMCID: PMC9955637 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0281417] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/01/2022] [Accepted: 01/23/2023] [Indexed: 02/25/2023] Open
Abstract
Adaptive cognitive control (CC), the ability to adjust goal-directed behavior according to changing environmental demand, can be instantiated bottom-up by implicit knowledge, including temporal predictability of task-relevant events. In S1-S2 tasks, either local (trial-by-trial hazard expectation) or global (block-by-block expectation) temporal information can induce prediction, allowing for proactive action control. Recent developmental evidence showed that adaptive CC based on global temporal prediction emerges earlier than when it is based on the local one only. However, very little is known about how children learn to dynamically adjust behavior on the fly according to changing global predictive information. Addressing this issue is nevertheless crucial to unravel the mechanisms underlying adaptive CC flexibility. Here we used a modified version of the Dynamic Temporal Prediction task to investigate how typically developing younger (6-8 years) and older children (9-11 years), adolescents (12-15 years) and adults (21-31 years) use global prediction to shape adaptive CC over time. Specifically, the short-long percentage of S2 preparatory intervals was manipulated list-wide to create a slow-fast-slow-fast fixed block sequence and test how efficiently the response speed adapted accordingly. Overall, results revealed that in all groups behavioral performance is successfully adjusted as a function of global prediction in the late phase of the task (block 3 to 4). Remarkably, only adolescents and adults exhibit an early adaptation of adaptive CC (block 1 to 2), while children younger than 11 show sluggish ability in inferring implicit changes in global predictive rules. This age-related dissociation suggests that, although being present from an early age, adaptive CC based on global predictive information needs more developmental space to become flexible in an efficient way. In the light of a neuroconstructivist approach, we suggest that bottom-up driven implicit flexibility may represent a key prerequisite for the development of efficient explicit cognitive control.
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Śmigasiewicz K, Ambrosi S, Blaye A, Burle B. Developmental changes in impulse control: Trial-by-trial EMG dissociates the evolution of impulse strength from its subsequent suppression. Dev Sci 2022; 25:e13273. [PMID: 35470516 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13273] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/29/2021] [Revised: 04/10/2022] [Accepted: 04/11/2022] [Indexed: 01/13/2023]
Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kamila Śmigasiewicz
- Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives, CNRS, Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille, France
| | - Solène Ambrosi
- Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, CNRS, Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille, France
| | - Agnès Blaye
- Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, CNRS, Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille, France
| | - Boris Burle
- Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives, CNRS, Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille, France
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Mento G, Toffoli L, Della Longa L, Farroni T, Del Popolo Cristaldi F, Duma GM. Adaptive Cognitive Control in Prematurely Born Children: An HD-EEG Investigation. Brain Sci 2022; 12:brainsci12081074. [PMID: 36009137 PMCID: PMC9406101 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci12081074] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/21/2022] [Revised: 08/08/2022] [Accepted: 08/12/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Preterm birth is a neurodevelopmental risk condition often associated with cognitive control (CC) impairment. Recent evidence showed that CC can be implicitly adapted through associative learning. In the present study we investigated the ability to flexibly adjust CC as a function of implicit stimulus-response temporal regularities in preterm (PT; N = 21; mean age 8 ± 1.3 years; gestational age 30 ± 18.5 weeks) and full-term (FT; N = 20; mean age 8 ± 1.3 years) school-age children. All children underwent an HD-EEG recording while undergoing the Dynamic Temporal Prediction (DTP) task, a simple S1–S2 detection task purposely designed to generate local-global temporal predictability of imperative stimuli. The Wisconsin card sorting test (WCST) was administered to measure explicit CC. The PT group showed more premature and slower (DTP) as well as perseverative (WCST) responses than the FT group. Moreover, pre-terms showed poor adaptive CC as revealed by less efficient global response-speed adjustment. This behavioral pattern was mirrored by a reduced and less sensitive to global manipulation anticipatory Contingent Negative Variation (CNV) and by different cortical source recruitment. These findings suggest that implicit CC may be a reliable endophenotypic marker of atypical cognitive development associated with preterm birth.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giovanni Mento
- Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
- Padova Neuroscience Center (PNC), University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
- Correspondence:
| | - Lisa Toffoli
- Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
| | - Letizia Della Longa
- Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
| | - Teresa Farroni
- Padova Neuroscience Center (PNC), University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
- Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
| | - Fiorella Del Popolo Cristaldi
- Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
- IRCCS “La Nostra Famiglia-Medea”, Conegliano, 31015 Treviso, Italy
| | - Gian Marco Duma
- Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
- Institut de Neurosciences des Systèmes, Aix-Marseille Université, 13005 Marseille, France
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Yanaoka K, Van't Wout F, Saito S, Jarrold C. Prior task experience increases 5-year-old children's use of proactive control: Behavioral and pupillometric evidence. Dev Sci 2021; 25:e13181. [PMID: 34623719 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13181] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/05/2021] [Revised: 09/24/2021] [Accepted: 10/01/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Children engage cognitive control reactively when they encounter conflicts; however, they can also resolve conflicts proactively. Recent studies have begun to clarify the mechanisms that support the use of proactive control in children; nonetheless, sufficient knowledge has not been accumulated regarding these mechanisms. Using behavioral and pupillometric measures, we tested the novel possibility that 5-year-old children (N = 58) learn to use proactive control via the acquisition of abstract task knowledge that captures regularities of the task. Participants were assigned to either a proactive training group or a control training group. In the proactive training group, participants engaged in a training phase where using proactive control was encouraged, followed by a test phase using different stimuli where both proactive and reactive control could be used. In the control training group, participants engaged in a training phase where both cognitive control strategies could be used, followed by a similarly-structured test phase using different stimuli. We demonstrated children in the control training group responded more quickly and accurately and showed greater cue-related pupil dilation in the test phase than in the training phase. However, there were no differences in response times, accuracies, and pupil dilation between the proactive and control training groups in the training and test phases. These findings suggest that prior task experience, that goes beyond specific knowledge about the timing of task goal activation, can lead children to engage more proactive control endogenously, even if they are not directly encouraged to do so.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kaichi Yanaoka
- Graduate School of Education, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.,Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan
| | | | - Satoru Saito
- Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
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