Trait and state negative affect interactions moderate inhibitory control performance in emotionally loaded conditions

The Development of Cognitive Control in Preschoolers and Kindergarteners: The Case of Post-Error Slowing and Delayed Disinhibition

This study aimed to investigate two specific behavioral manifestations of the executive attention systems in preschoolers and kindergarteners, beyond the unique contribution of intelligence. We tested post-error slowing [RT¯Post-error trial-RT¯Not post-error trial] as a marker of reactive control and delayed disinhibition as a novel marker for proactive control. One hundred and eighty preschool- and kindergarten-aged children, as well as their mothers (final sample: 155 children and 174 mothers), performed an adapted task based on Go/NoGo and Stroop-like paradigms-the emotional day-night task. The children showed reliable post-error slowing and delayed disinhibition (mean size effects of 238.18 ms and 58.31 ms, respectively), while the adult size effects were 40-50% smaller. The post-error slowing effect was present for both sexes in all the tested ages, while the delayed disinhibition effect was present only for girls. Both effects showed large individual differences that became smaller in adulthood. Our findings emphasize the earlier maturation of reactive control compared to proactive control, and the earlier maturation of proactive cognitive control in girls compared to boys.

Missed meal boluses and poorer glycemic control impact on neurocognitive function may be associated with white matter integrity in adolescents with type 1 diabetes

Background

The notion that pediatric type 1 diabetes impacts brain function and structure early in life is of great concern. Neurological manifestations, including neurocognitive and behavioral symptoms, may be present from childhood, initially mild and undetectable in daily life. Despite intensive management and technological therapeutic interventions, most pediatric patients do not achieve glycemic control targets for HbA1c. One of the most common causes of such poor control and frequent transient hyperglycemic episodes may be lifestyle factors, including missed meal boluses.

Objective

The aim of this study was to assess the association between specific neurocognitive accomplishments-learning and memory, inhibition ability learning, and verbal and semantic memory-during meals with and without bolusing, correlated to diffusion tensor imaging measurements of major related tracts, and glycemic control in adolescents with type 1 diabetes compared with their healthy siblings of similar age.

Study design and methods

This is a case-control study of 12- to 18-year-old patients with type 1 diabetes (N = 17, 8 male patients, diabetes duration of 6.53 ± 4.1 years) and their healthy siblings (N = 13). All were hospitalized for 30 h for continuous glucose monitoring and repeated neurocognitive tests as a function of a missed or appropriate pre-meal bolus. This situation was mimicked by controlled, patient blinded manipulation of lunch pre-meal bolus administration to enable capillary glucose level of <180 mg/dl and to >240 mg/d 2 hours after similar meals, at a similar time. The diabetes team randomly and blindly manipulated post-lunch glucose levels by subcutaneous injection of either rapid-acting insulin or 0.9% NaCl solution before lunch. A specific neurocognitive test battery was performed twice, after each manipulation, and its results were compared, along with additional neurocognitive tasks administered during hospitalization without insulin manipulation. Participants underwent brain imaging, including diffusion tensor imaging and tractography.

Results

A significant association was demonstrated between glycemic control and performance in the domains of executive functions, inhibition ability, learning and verbal memory, and semantic memory. Inhibition ability was specifically related to food management. Poorer glycemic control (>8.3%) was associated with a slower reaction time.

Conclusion

These findings highlight the potential impairment of brain networks responsible for learning, memory, and controlled reactivity to food in adolescents with type 1 diabetes whose glycemic control is poor.

Cognitive strategies for managing cheating: The roles of cognitive abilities in managing moral shortcuts

Cheating and immorality are highly researched phenomena, likely due to their great impact. However, little research has examined the real-time cognitive mechanisms that are involved in cheating and conflict management. Much of the cheating research to date concentrates on binary cheating; however, in more prevalent real-world scenarios, people often engage in more ambiguous self-serving mistakes. To execute such self-serving decisions, one may make use of conflict-management strategies to help balance an internal struggle between gain and self-concept. We propose that to enact such strategies one must employ sufficient cognitive resources. To test this, we employed a simple effortful control task that allows for comparisons of gain and no-gain errors, isolating self-serving mistakes while recording gaze and response-time measures. Findings revealed that individuals can make use of conflict management strategies that mimicked errors made inadvertently. Two strategies included gaze avert and quick response times during gain blocks, whereby participants simulated out-of-control-like behaviors while engaging in self-serving mistakes, plausibly as a method of self-justification. Strategy use was dependent upon individuals' cognitive abilities. Participants reporting high inhibitory control abilities were able to use gaze aversion to engage in self-serving mistakes, while those reporting high attention resources were able to employ faster response times when making more profitable errors. Taken together, this paper contributes to (1) the debate on whether honesty/dishonesty is the dominant response, (2) the debate on self-control and inhibition on cheating, and (3) the understudied area of cognitive justifications to maintain a positive self-concept.

Cheating behavior in children: Integrating gaze allocation and social awareness

Children's cheating and factors supporting honesty are not well understood. The current work explored variables involved in children's cheating through eye-tracking and an implicit manipulation in which extrinsic awareness of the effects of one's behaviors on others was primed. Participants played a computer game with the option for a monetary gain in which they could earn more if they selectively erred in response to more profitable stimuli. Results show that children cheat by making selective effort toward more profitable errors; however, extrinsic awareness inhibits these cheating behaviors. Importantly, gaze toward children's earnings mediates this relationship, suggesting that extrinsic awareness mitigates an impulsive looking pattern, which in turn results in less cheating. Findings suggest that an implicit manipulation, highlighting the potential implications of one's actions for others, seems to effectively suppress cheating among children. Furthermore, attention toward earnings offers a cognitive process that acts to mediate the effect of this manipulation on cheating. Taken together, this framework suggests psychoneurocognitive and social processes that influence cheating in children, offering a direction for future implicit intervention techniques to support honest performance.

A Critical Review of Negative Affect and the Application of CBT for PTSD

Forms of cognitive and behavioral therapies (CBTs), including prolonged exposure and cognitive processing therapy, have been empirically validated as efficacious treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the assumption that PTSD develops from dysregulated fear circuitry possesses limitations that detract from the potential efficacy of CBT approaches. An analysis of these limitations may provide insight into improvements to the CBT approach to PTSD, beginning with an examination of negative affect as an essential component to the conceptualization of PTSD and a barrier to the implementation of CBT for PTSD. As such, the literature regarding the impact of negative affect on aspects of cognition (i.e., attention, processing, memory, and emotion regulation) necessary for the successful application of CBT was systematically reviewed. Several literature databases were explored (e.g., PsychINFO and PubMed), resulting in 25 articles that met criteria for inclusion. Results of the review indicated that high negative affect generally disrupts cognitive processes, resulting in a narrowed focus on stimuli of a negative valence, increased rumination of negative autobiographical memories, inflexible preservation of initial information, difficulty considering counterfactuals, reliance on emotional reasoning, and misinterpretation of neutral or ambiguous events as negative, among others. With the aim to improve treatment efficacy of CBT for PTSD, suggestions to incorporate negative affect into research and clinical contexts are discussed.

Hot executive control and response to a stimulant in a double-blind randomized trial in children with ADHD

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is thought to involve an executive inhibitory control (IC) deficit, yet it is not clear if this is a general deficit affecting both cold and hot EC, and if methylphenidate (MPH) affects both systems in treated children. We explored this by using a Stroop-like task in children with ADHD as compared to controls, containing different types of emotional stimuli (six levels), and we investigated the role of intervention with MPH on IC as compared to placebo. Children with ADHD and controls (N = 40; 7-13 years old) were tested with a hot and cold Stroop-like task. This was followed by a double-blind placebo-controlled crossover trial of the effect of MPH on these skills. Children with ADHD showed a specific difficulty inhibiting their responses, particularly to hot, angry and frustration-inducing stimuli. Further, treatment with MPH was effective in reducing errors toward frustration-inducing stimuli as compared to placebo (p < .05, η ² = .347), particularly with repeated exposure to the stimuli. Results indicate that children with ADHD experience executive control difficulties, particularly in hot negative emotional contexts. These emotion regulation difficulties are amenable to stimulant intervention.