A Psychophysiological Analysis of Developmental Differences in the Ability to Resist Interference

Children's inhibition skills are associated with their P3a latency-results from an exploratory study

BACKGROUND

The P3a response is thought to reflect involuntary orienting to an unexpected stimulus and has been connected with set-shifting and inhibition in some studies. In our exploratory study, we investigated if the amplitude and the latency of the P3a response were associated with the performance in a modified flanker task measuring inhibition and set-shifting in 10-year-old children (N = 42). Children participated in electroencephalography (EEG) measurement with an auditory multifeature paradigm including standard, deviating, and novel sounds. In addition, they performed a separate flanker task requiring inhibition and set-shifting skills.

RESULTS

The P3a latencies for deviant sounds were associated with the reaction time reflecting inhibition: the shorter the response latencies were, the faster the reaction time was. The P3a latencies for novel sounds were not linked to the reaction times reflecting either inhibition or set-shifting. In addition, the magnitude of the P3a response was not associated with the performance in the flanker task.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggest that P3a response latency and reaction speed reflecting inhibitory skills are based on shared neural mechanism. Thus, the present study brings new insight to the field investigating the associations between behavior and its neural indices.

Age-related qualitative differences in post-error cognitive control adjustments

Detecting an error signals the need for increased cognitive control and behavioural adjustments. Considerable development in performance monitoring and cognitive control is evidenced by lower error rates and faster response times in multi-trial executive function tasks with age. Besides these quantitative changes, we were interested in whether qualitative changes in balancing accuracy and speed contribute to developmental progression during elementary school years. We conducted two studies investigating the temporal and developmental trajectories of post-error slowing in three prominent cognitive conflict tasks (Stroop, Simon, and flanker). We instructed children (8-, 10-, and 12-year-old) and adults to respond as fast and as accurately as possible and measured their response times on four trials after correct and incorrect responses to a cognitive conflict. Results revealed that all age groups had longer response times on post-error versus post-correct trials, reflecting post-error slowing. Critically, slowing on the first post-error trial declined with age, suggesting an age-related reduction in the orienting response towards errors. This age effect diminished on subsequent trials, suggesting more fine-tuned cognitive control adjustments with age. Overall, the consistent pattern across tasks suggests an age-related change from a relatively strong orienting response to more balanced cognitive control adaptations.

The influence of social motivation on neural correlates of cognitive control in girls

Motivation influences cognitive control, particularly in childhood and adolescence. Previous work finds that the error-related negativity (ERN), an event-related potential (ERP) linked to cognitive control following errors, is influenced by social motivation. However, it is unclear whether the influences of social motivation on the ERN extend to stimulus-locked neural correlates of cognitive control. This study reexamines how social motivation influences cognitive control in adolescence by exploring motivational influences on two stimulus-locked ERPs; the N2 and P3. Adolescent girls (8-17 years of age) completed a flanker task under two different conditions. In the social condition, girls were led to believe that they were evaluated by a peer during a flanker task. In the nonsocial condition, girls completed a flanker task while evaluated by a computer. Results revealed that all girls exhibited a larger P3 in social as compared to nonsocial contexts, whereas the N2 was not different between contexts. In addition, the largest P3 enhancements were observed among younger girls. These findings suggest that social motivation influences some ERP components related to cognitive control, and such influences change across development. Additionally, findings suggest the importance of including multiple ERPs when interpreting the functional significance of motivation on cognitive control.

Visual Processing Matters in Chinese Reading Acquisition and Early Mathematics

The main purpose of the present study was to investigate whether visual processing uniquely contributed to character reading and early mathematics in Chinese children. Eighty-two Chinese kindergarteners at K3 (mean age = 68 months, SD = 0.30) were followed up to grade one (mean age = 82 months, SD = 0.35) with an interval of 14 months. Nonverbal intelligence, inhibitory control, sustained attention, character reading, and mathematics were measured at kindergarten. Character reading and mathematics were assessed again at grade one. Results showed visual processing at kindergarten significantly predicted character reading at grade one after controlling for prior reading performance, inhibitory control, sustained attention, age, gender, and nonverbal IQ. Similarly, visual processing at kindergarten explained unique variance in early mathematics at grade one when prior mathematics performance and other covariates at kindergarten were controlled. These findings suggest that visual processing should serve as a domain-general precursor of children's performance in character reading and early mathematics and an important cognitive factor for later academic learning.

A Non-linear Relationship Between Selective Attention and Associated ERP Markers Across the Lifespan

The ability to selectively attend to task-relevant information increases throughout childhood and decreases in older age. Here, we intended to investigate these opposing developmental trajectories, to assess whether gains and losses early and late in life are associated with similar or different electrophysiological changes, and to get a better understanding about the development in middle-adulthood. We (re-)analyzed behavioral and electrophysiological data of 211 participants, who performed a colored Flanker task while their Electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. Participants were subdivided into six groups depending on their age, ranging from 8 to 83 years. We analyzed response speed and accuracy as well as the event replated potential (ERP) components P1 and N1, associated with visual processing and attention, N2 as marker of interference suppression and cognitive control, and P3 as a marker of cognitive updating and stimulus categorization. Response speed and accuracy were low early and later in life, with peak performance in young adults. Similarly, ERP latencies of all components and P1 and N1 amplitudes followed a u-shape pattern with shortest latencies and smallest amplitudes occurring in middle-age. N2 amplitudes were larger in children, and for incongruent stimuli in adults middle-aged and older. P3 amplitudes showed a parietal-to-frontal shift with age. Further, group-wise regression analyses suggested that children’s performance depended on cognitive processing speed, while older adults’ performance depended on cognitive resources. Together these results imply that different mechanisms restrict performance early and late in life and suggest a non-linear relationship between electrophysiological markers and performance in the Flanker task across the lifespan.

Contributions of Basic Cognitive Processing to Chinese Reading: The Mediation Effect of Basic Language Processing

Prior research has mostly focused on either basic language or basic cognitive precursors of reading development, but relatively little is known about their relative importance for reading, especially for Chinese beginning readers. The present study examined whether and how basic cognitive processing (executive function, attention, and visual-spatial perception) and basic language processing (phonological awareness, morphological awareness, orthographic awareness, and RAN) measured at kindergarten influence Chinese character reading and reading comprehension in the first grade. Results showed that basic language abilities including morphological awareness and rapid automatized naming predicted later Chinese character reading. Only one basic cognitive skill, sustained attention, predicted later reading comprehension. Mediation analysis showed that the overall effects of basic cognitive skills on later character reading and reading comprehension were mediated by basic language skills. These findings supported an integration reading model for early Chinese reading and basic language processing at kindergarten plays an important role in explaining the relation between basic cognitive processing and grade one reading performance.

Reach tracking reveals dissociable processes underlying inhibitory control in 5- to 10-year-olds and adults

Researchers have proposed that two processes featuring distinct types of inhibition support inhibitory control: a response threshold adjustment process involving the global inhibition of motor output and a conflict resolution process involving competitive inhibition among co-active response alternatives. To target the development of these processes, we measured the reaching behavior of 5- to 10-year-olds (Experiment 1) and adults (Experiment 2) as they performed an Eriksen flanker task. This method provided two key measures: initiation time (the time elapsed between stimulus onset and movement onset) and reach curvature (the degree to which a movement deviates from a direct path to the selected target). We suggest that initiation time reflects the response threshold adjustment process by indexing the degree of motoric stopping experienced before a movement is started, while reach curvature reflects the conflict resolution process by indexing the degree of co-activation between response alternatives over the course of a movement. Our results support this claim, revealing different patterns effects in initiation time and curvature, and divergent developmental trajectories between childhood and adulthood. These findings provide behavioral evidence for the dissociation between global and competitive inhibition, and offer new insight into the development of inhibitory control.

Perceptual interference processing in preschool children, with and without prenatal exposure to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors

BACKGROUND

Prenatal exposure to maternal depression, with or without maternal medical antidepressant treatment, may pose a risk to the child's cognitive and behavioral development. Targeting one of the core functions of behavioral regulation, we investigated both behavioral and neural indices of interference suppression in both exposed and control participants at preschool age.

METHODS

Children (N = 80, M = 68.60 months, SD = 5.57) with prenatal exposure to maternal depression with (SSRI, N = 21) and without (DEP, N = 33) antidepressant treatment were tested together with unexposed children (CON, N = 26) on a behavioral flanker task while recording event-related potentials (ERPs). ERPs were extracted from trials with congruent/incongruent flankers and speeded/slow response times (RT).

FINDINGS

Effects of flanker congruence were found in both behavioral indices and the late slow wave ERP (LSW, 500-800 ms), across all groups in the expected directions. Further, increased amplitude of the N2 (350-450 ms) and the LSW potential was found in trials with speeded vs slow RT. Interestingly, the parietal N2 in speeded trials showed decreased latency among children in the CON group but not among the other children. No other effects of group on ERP or behavioral measures were found.

CONCLUSION

While interference effects were evident in behavioral and ERP measures, prenatal exposure to SSRIs and DEP was not directly associated with abilities of interference suppression. However, RT in the flanker task was associated with N2 and LSW potentials. Importantly, the interaction between RT and participant group upon parietal N2 latency may suggest effects of prenatal exposure on neural efficiency.