Costs and benefits linked to developments in cognitive control

Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 2006

Working memory (WM) and inhibitory control (IC) are general-purpose resources that guide cognition and behavior. In this study, the developmental relations between WM and IC were investigated in 96 typically developing children aged 6 to 17 years in an experimental task paradigm using an efficiency metric that combined speed and accuracy performance. The ability to activate and process information in WM showed protracted age-related growth. Performance involving WM and IC together was empirically distinguishable from that involving WM alone. The results indicate that developmental improvements in WM are attributable to increased processing efficiency in activation, suppression, and strategic resource deployment, and that WM and IC are best studied in novel, complex situations that elicit competition among those resources (JINS, 2007, 13, 59-67.

Nature neuroscience, 2024

Cognitive control is required to organize thoughts and actions and is critical for the pursuit of long-term goals. Childhood cognitive control relates to other domains of cognitive functioning and predicts later-life success and well-being. In this study, we used a randomized controlled trial to test whether cognitive control can be improved through a pre-registered 8-week intervention in 235 children aged 6-13 years targeting response inhibition and whether this leads to changes in multiple behavioral and neural outcomes compared to a response speed training. We show long-lasting improvements of closely related measures of cognitive control at the 1 -y ear f o l l o w -up; however, training had no impact on any behavioral outcomes (decision-making, academic achievement, mental health, fluid reasoning and creativity) or neural outcomes (task-dependent and intrinsic brain function and gray and white matter structure). Bayesian analyses provide strong evidence of absent training effects. We conclude that targeted training of response inhibition does little to change children's brains or their behavior. Cognitive control refers to a set of processes critical for guiding thoughts, feelings and actions in a flexible, goal-directed manner 1 . Childhood cognitive control is positively associated with a range of outcomes in other domains, notably social skills 2-6 , academic performance 7,8 and mental health 9 and, more crucially, is predictive of these outcomes later in life . Cognitive control undergoes protracted development from childhood into early adulthood . This development is underpinned by the maturation of late-developing fronto-parietal and fronto-striatal neural circuitry , supposedly affording extended plasticity 17 . Given its critical role in healthy and productive development, coupled with the prolonged plasticity of its underlying neural circuitry, cognitive control has been a primary target for interventions and particularly so in childhood 20 . Interventions are costly in terms of time, money and opportunity, yet there is continued debate over how successful they actually are. Cognitive control interventions have primarily focused on improving their hypothesized constituent processes, namely working memory, cognitive flexibility and, to a lesser extent, response inhibition .

Neuropsychologia, 2006

Predictions concerning development, interrelations, and possible independence of working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility were tested in 325 participants (roughly 30 per age from 4 to 13 years and young adults; 50% female). All were tested on the same computerized battery, designed to manipulate memory and inhibition independently and together, in steady state (single-task blocks) and during task-switching, and to be appropriate over the lifespan and for neuroimaging (fMRI). This is one of the first studies, in children or adults, to explore: (a) how memory requirements interact with spatial compatibility and (b) spatial incompatibility effects both with stimulus-specific rules (Simon task) and with higher-level, conceptual rules. Even the youngest children could hold information in mind, inhibit a dominant response, and combine those as long as the inhibition required was steady-state and the rules remained constant. Cognitive flexibility (switching between rules), even with memory demands minimized, showed a longer developmental progression, with 13-year-olds still not at adult levels. Effects elicited only in Mixed blocks with adults were found in young children even in single-task blocks; while young children could exercise inhibition in steady state it exacted a cost not seen in adults, who (unlike young children) seemed to re-set their default response when inhibition of the same tendency was required throughout a block. The costs associated with manipulations of inhibition were greater in young children while the costs associated with increasing memory demands were greater in adults. Effects seen only in RT in adults were seen primarily in accuracy in young children. Adults slowed down on difficult trials to preserve accuracy; but the youngest children were impulsive; their RT remained more constant but at an accuracy cost on difficult trials. Contrary to our predictions of independence between memory and inhibition, when matched for difficulty RT correlations between these were as high as 0.8, although accuracy correlations were less than half that. Spatial incompatibility effects and global and local switch costs were evident in children and adults, differing only in size. Other effects (e.g., asymmetric switch costs and the interaction of switching rules and switching response-sites) differed fundamentally over age.

Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences, 2013

Cognitive control, otherwise known as executive function, refers to our ability to flexibly adjust or regulate habitual actions or behaviors. As a cluster of separable components, it depends heavily on the prefrontal cortex, one of the last brain regions to reach adult maturity. Cognitive control processes are thought to be among the key factors for scholastic success, and thus, underdeveloped cognitive control abilities might contribute to an achievement gap. In this chapter, we first discuss the prolonged maturation of the prefrontal cortex that leads to delayed emergence of cognitive control abilities in children. We briefly describe some of the functional effects of prolonged maturation of the prefrontal cortex. We then discuss how experience and environmental factors such as education and socioeconomic status may affect the development of cognitive control abilities, before turning to cognitive training interventions as a promising avenue for reducing this cognitive ''gap'' in both healthy children and those with developmental disabilities. Taken together, our hope is that by understanding the interaction of brain development, environmental factors, and the promise of cognitive interventions in children, this knowledge can help to both guide educational achievement and inform educational policy.

Neuropsychologia, 2018

Young adults adaptively coordinate their behavior to avoid demands placed on cognitive control. We investigated how this adaptive coordination develops by having 6-7- and 11-12-year-olds and young adults complete a demand selection task, in which participants could select between two tasks that varied in cognitive control demands via differences in rule switch frequency. Adults and older children exhibited significant preference for selecting the less demanding task, as well as a metacognitive signal guiding adaptive demand avoidance behavior across a variety of behavioral and self-report assessments. In contrast, despite evidence of differential demands on cognitive control, younger children did not coordinate their task selections to avoid higher demand. Together, these findings suggest that sensitivity and adaptive responses to control demands emerge with development and are consistent with gradual development of lateral prefrontal cortex, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and th...

The ability to shield against distraction while focusing on a task requires the operation of executive functions and is essential for successful learning. We investigated the short-term dynamics of distraction control in a data set of 269 children aged 4–10 years and 51 adults pooled from three studies using multilevel models. Participants performed a visual categorization task while a task-irrelevant sequence of sounds was presented which consisted of frequently repeated standard sounds and rarely interspersed novel sounds. On average, participants responded slower in the categorization task after novel sounds. This distraction effect was more pronounced in children. Throughout the experiment, the initially strong distraction effects declined to level of adults in the groups of 6- to 10-year-olds. Such a decline was neither observed in the groups of the 4- and 5-year-olds, who consistently show a high level of distraction, nor in adults, who showed a constantly low level of distrac...

2020

Developmental changes in executive function are often explained in terms of core cognitive processes and associated neural substrates. For example, younger children tend to engage control reactively in the moment as needed, whereas older children increasingly engage control proactively, in anticipation of needing it. Such developments may reflect increasing capacities for active maintenance dependent upon dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. However, younger children will engage proactive control when reactive control is made more difficult, suggesting that developmental changes may also reflect decisions about whether to engage control, and how. We tested awareness of temporal control demands and associated task choices in 5- and 10-year-olds and adults using a demand selection task. Participants chose between one task that enabled proactive control and another task that enabled reactive control. Adults reported awareness of these different control demands and preferentially played the ...

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2009

People often perseverate, repeating outdated behaviors despite correctly answering questions about rules they should be following. Children who perseverate are slower to respond to such questions than children who successfully switch to new rules, even after controlling for age and processing speed. Thus, switchers may have stronger working memory strength than perseverators, with stronger rule representations supporting both flexible switching and faster responses to questions. Alternatively, better inhibitory abilities may support switchers' faster responses by helping to resolve conflict. The current study tested these accounts using a new one-dimensional card sort. Even with all possible sources of conflict removed, switchers still responded faster than perseverators to questions about rules, supporting the graded working memory account.

Biological Psychology, 1997

The present article addresses the claim that the speed of information processing qualifies as a processing resource. This claim contends that age-related changes in processing speed pertain to all cognitive processes to the same proportional degree. That is, processing speed is compared to the clock speed of a microcomputer: as young children's clock speed increases, the speed of processing in all cognitive processes increases until the adult level is reached. Re-analyses of recent behavioral and psychophysiological data provide evidence against the notion that development is characterized by an increase in children's global clock speed, and refute the claim that processing speed operates as a mental resource on which all cognitive processes depend to the same extent. Rather, the results emphasize the role of inhibitory control in cognitive development, and we consider the relevance of inhibitory development to the issue of age-related changes in processing capacity. 0 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.

PLOS ONE, 2017

A key developmental transition in executive function is in the temporal dynamics of its engagement: children shift from reactively calling to mind task-relevant information as needed, to being able to proactively maintain information across time in anticipation of upcoming demands. This transition is important for understanding individual differences and developmental changes in executive function; however, methods targeting its assessment are limited. We tested the possibility that Track-It, a paradigm developed to measure selective sustained attention, also indexes proactive control. In this task children must track a target shape as it moves unpredictably among moving distractors, and identify where it disappears, which may require proactively maintaining information about the target or goal. In two experiments (5-6 year-olds, Ns = 33, 64), children's performance on Track-It predicted proactive control across two established paradigms. These findings suggest Track-It measures proactive control in children. Theoretical possibilities regarding how proactive control and selective sustained attention may be related are also discussed.