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.     

Age-related differences in the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in attentional control

We investigated the relative involvement of cortical regions supporting attentional control in older and younger adults during performance on a modified version of the Stroop task. Participants were exposed to two different types of incongruent trials. One of these, an incongruent-ineligible condition, produces conflict at the non-response level, while the second, an incongruent-eligible condition, produces conflict at both non-response and response levels of information processing. Greater attentional control is needed to perform the incongruent-eligible condition compared to other conditions. We examined the cortical recruitment associated with this task in an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm in 25 older and 25 younger adults. Our results indicated that while younger adults demonstrated an increase in the activation of cortical regions responsible for maintaining attentional control in response to increased levels of conflict, such sensitivity and flexibility of the cortical regions to increased attentional control demands was absent in older adults. These results suggest a limitation in older adults’ capabilities for flexibly recruiting the attentional network in response to increasing attentional demands.     

Age-related differences in inhibitory control in the early school years

The transition to school is associated with a greater requirement to inhibit irrelevant or inappropriate thought and behavior in order to concentrate on effective learning and to interact successfully with peers. Current knowledge of inhibitory control development in the early school years is limited due to a lack of normative data from age-appropriate, sensitive measures. In this study, three pictorial versions of the Stroop task were administered to investigate inhibitory control development in early school-aged children. Age-related trajectories of inhibition and effects of gender were examined in 80 children (42 boys) aged 5 to 8 years. All children were assessed with the Cognitive Assessment System Expressive Attention subtest (Big-Small Stroop), Fruit Stroop, and Boy-Girl Stroop. The Big-Small Stroop revealed substantial age-related improvement in inhibition from 5 to 7 years with a levelling of performance at 8 years of age, while the Fruit Stroop and Boy-Girl Stroop demonstrated clear but nonsignificant age trends. In particular, older children committed fewer errors and corrected their errors more frequently than younger children. Performance on all Stroop tasks correlated significantly, providing evidence that they tap similar cognitive abilities. Some gender differences were found. This study indicates that inhibitory skills develop rapidly in the early school years and suggests that error awareness may be a useful indicator of the development of cognitive inhibition for this age group.     

Individual differences in cognitive control over emotional material modulate cognitive biases linked to depressive symptoms

Deficient cognitive control over emotional material and cognitive biases are important mechanisms underlying depression, but the interplay between these emotionally distorted cognitive processes in relation to depressive symptoms is not well understood. This study investigated the relations among deficient cognitive control of emotional information (i.e. inhibition, shifting, and updating difficulties), cognitive biases (i.e. negative attention and interpretation biases), and depressive symptoms. Theory-driven indirect effect models were constructed, hypothesising that deficient cognitive control over emotional material predicts depressive symptoms through negative attention and interpretation biases. Bootstrapping analyses demonstrated that deficient inhibitory control over negative material was related to negative attention bias which in turn predicted a congruent bias in interpretation and subsequently depressive symptoms. Both shifting and updating impairments in response to negative material had an indirect effect on depression severity through negative interpretation bias. No evidence was found for direct effects of deficient cognitive control over emotional material on depressive symptoms. These findings may help to formulate an integrated understanding of the cognitive foundations of depressive symptoms.     

Individual differences in cognitive control processes and their relationship to emotion regulation

Cognitive control and emotional control share many similarities, but the specific relationship between these processes is not well understood. This study explored the relationship between three types of cognitive control (working memory updating, response inhibition and set-shifting) and two emotional regulation strategies (expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal). Corrugator electromyography, behaviour and self-reports of affect were measured as indices of emotion regulation. Results indicate that working memory updating predicted negative affect reduction during reappraisal and during expressive suppression. This study specifically shows that the working memory component of cognitive control is associated with negative affect reduction. Response inhibition and set-shifting were not specifically related to negative affect reduction, but these variables did predict aspects of emotional behaviour and regulation. These results suggest a general role for cognitive control in some aspects of emotion regulation as well as a specific modulatory role for working memory updating in the regulation of negative affect.     

Limits on the generalizability of context-driven control

Context-driven control refers to the fast and flexible weighting of stimulus dimensions that may be applied at the onset of a stimulus. Evidence for context-driven control comes from interference tasks in which participants encounter a high proportion of incongruent trials at one location and a high proportion of congruent trials at another location. Since the size of the congruency effect varies as a function of location, this suggests that stimulus dimensions are weighted differently based on the context in which they appear. However, manipulations of condition proportion are often confounded by variations in the frequency with which particular stimuli are encountered. To date, there is limited evidence for the context-driven control in the absence of stimulus frequency confounds. In the current paper, we attempt to replicate and extend one such finding [Crump, M. J. C., & Milliken, B. (2009). The flexibility of context-specific control: Evidence for context-driven generalization of item-specific control settings. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62, 1523–1532]. Across three experiments we fail to find evidence for context-driven control in the absence of stimulus frequency confounds. Based on these results, we argue that consistency in the informativeness of the irrelevant dimension may be required for context-driven control to emerge.     

Effects of age and ability on components of cognitive change

Prior experience with a cognitive task is often associated with higher performance on a second assessment, and these experience effects can complicate the interpretation of cognitive change. The current study was designed to investigate experience effects by obtaining measures of cognitive performance separated by days and by years. The analyses were based on data from 2017 adults with two longitudinal occasions, of whom 948 had also completed a third occasion, with each occasion consisting of three parallel versions of the tests on separate sessions. Change across short intervals was typically positive, and greater among older adults and adults with low levels of cognitive ability, whereas change over intervals of approximately three years was often negative, particularly at older ages. In contrast to the expectation that change over short intervals might be informative about change over longer intervals, relations between short-term change and long-term change were negative, as the individuals who gained the most with assessments separated by days tended to experience the greatest losses across assessments separated by years.     

Cognitive control and word recognition speed influence the Stroop effect in bilinguals

Bilinguals have been shown to be less susceptible to Stroop interference in their first language than monolinguals, though the cause is currently being debated. In two experiments, we explored how cognitive control and word recognition contribute to the Stroop effect by contrasting cognitive control (via a Simon arrow task), word recognition speed (via a Chinese/English word recognition task) and Stroop susceptibility (via a verbal Stroop task) between proficient and non‐proficient Chinese–English bilinguals. Compared to non‐proficient bilinguals, proficient bilinguals showed better cognitive control at inhibiting irrelevant information, and they were slower at recognising Chinese words but quicker at recognising English words. Critically, we also showed that proficient bilinguals showed a smaller Stroop effect than non‐proficient bilinguals in Chinese but a comparable Stroop effect as non‐proficient bilinguals in English. The results cannot be accounted for by cognitive control or word recognition speed alone; instead, they are best accommodated by assuming that cognitive control and word recognition speed jointly determine the Stroop effect. Thus, we conclude that enhanced cognitive control and delayed word recognition combine to reduce Stroop effect in bilinguals as compared to monolinguals.     

The flexibility of context-specific control: Evidence for context-driven generalization of item-specific control settings

In two experiments we address an ongoing debate concerning the processes driving context-driven modulations to the Stroop effect (Crump, Gong, & Milliken, 2006). In particular, we demonstrate that context-driven processes can modulate the size of the Stroop effect for frequency-unbiased item types. We also clarify the role of item frequency in producing context-driven modulations to the Stroop effect. Taken together, our results provide unambiguous support for the claim that contextual processing can impart fast and flexible control over the operation of selective attention processes during online performance.     

A functional approach for research on cognitive control: Analysing cognitive control tasks and their effects in terms of operant conditioning

Cognitive control is an important mental ability that is examined using a multitude of cognitive control tasks and effects. The present paper presents the first steps in the elaboration of a functional approach, which aims to uncover the communalities and differences between different cognitive control tasks and their effects. Based on the idea that responses in cognitive control tasks qualify as operant behaviour, we propose to reinterpret cognitive control tasks in terms of operant contingencies and cognitive control effects as instances of moderated stimulus control. We illustrate how our approach can be used to uncover communalities between topographically different cognitive control tasks and can lead to novel questions about the processes underlying cognitive control.     

Inter-hemispheric recruitment as a function of task complexity,age and cognitive reserve

In a behavioral divided visual field study, we investigated the efficiency of inter-hemispheric cooperation according to (1) task computational complexity (physical-identity versus name-identity letter matching), (2) age (younger versus older adults) and (3) educational attainment, used as a proxy for cognitive reserve. Overall, the results indicated a shift from within- to across-hemisphere processing advantage with increasing task complexity, suggesting that bilateral engagement leads to enhanced performance under high-demand conditions. This pattern was influenced by age, with older adults showing no within-hemisphere advantage in the simpler task and a greater across-hemisphere advantage in the more complex one, consistent with an age-compensatory view of inter-hemispheric recruitment. Moreover, for older adults, more years of education was associated with a weaker across-hemisphere advantage. Thus, we propose that cognitive reserve may account for bilateral engagement efficiency. Finally, the groups differed in terms of laterality effects, with only younger adults demonstrating a left visual field advantage in the name-identity task, lending some support to the right hemi-aging hypothesis.     

Specific effects of acute moderate exercise on cognitive control

The main issue of this study was to determine whether cognitive control is affected by acute moderate exercise. Twelve participants [4 females (VO_{2 max} = 42 ml/kg/min) and 8 males (VO_{2 max} = 48 ml/kg/min)] performed a Simon task while cycling at a carefully controlled workload intensity corresponding to their individual ventilatory threshold. The distribution-analytical technique and the delta plot analysis [Ridderinkhof, K. R. (2002). Activation and suppression in conflict tasks: Empirical clarification through distributional analyses. In W. Prinz & B. Hommel (Eds.), Common mechanisms in perception and action. Attention and performance (Vol. 19, pp. 494–519). Oxford: Oxford University Press.] were used to assess the role of selective response inhibition in resolving response conflict. Results showed that cognitive processes appeared to be differently affected by acute moderate exercise. Reaction time results confirmed that performance is better (faster without change in accuracy) when the cognitive task is performed simultaneously with exercise. Between-trial adjustments (post-conflict and post-error) highlighted that cognitive control adjustments are also fully efficient during exercise. However, the effect of congruency (Simon effect) appeared to be more pronounced during exercise compared to rest which suggests that the response inhibition is deteriorated during exercise. The present findings suggest that acute moderate exercise differently affects some specific aspects of cognitive functions.     

Positive emotion modulates cognitive control: An event‐related potentials study

There is substantial evidence to indicate that negative emotion can modulate cognitive control processing. However, only a few studies have investigated this effect with positive emotion. Therefore, the present study explored the electrophysiological correlates of the impact of positive emotional stimuli on cognitive control, using event‐related potentials (ERPs). Sixteen healthy young adults completed a modified Simon task (Simon, 1969). Behavioral data indicated that reaction times were faster for positive emotional stimuli than for neutral emotional stimuli in the incongruent condition, but not in the congruent condition, which suggested that positive emotion expedited conflict resolution. The ERP data showed that two negative ERP components (N300–400 and N450–550) were associated with the positive emotional stimuli in the incongruent minus congruent condition. It is suggested that these components may respectively be related to the conflict monitoring (N300–400) and response selection (N450–550) stages of cognitive control processing. Overall, our results indicated that positive emotion could facilitate cognitive control processing. These results are in line with the neuropsychological theory, according to which, positive emotion could modulate cognitive control mediated by increased dopamine levels in frontal brain areas.     

Impairments in inhibition or cognitive control in psychological disorders

Contributions to this special issue of Applied & Preventive Psychology richly elucidate connections between a variety of psychological disorders and performance in a number of tasks that are used to reason about inhibitory deficits. This commentary calls attention to the different uses of the concept of inhibition – vernacular, neural, operational, and theoretical – and suggests that the term cognitive control avoids claims about dampened memory representations that are difficult to support. Central findings from the reviews are summarized; evidence concerning suppression-induced forgetting is featured and directions to foster application are discussed.     

Cognitive control outside of conscious awareness

To test whether cognitive control can operate fully unconsciously on conflicts arising between two interfering subliminal stimuli, we designed a priming paradigm in which a subliminal reverse Color-Word Stroop item (a color word written on a congruent/incongruent color rectangle) preceded a supraliminal one in each trial. We found (a) a conflict adaptation effect, with a smaller reverse Stroop effect on the visible probe items after incongruent than after congruent subliminal prime items and (b) a negative priming effect, with longer reaction-times on incongruent visible probe items when the color word corresponded to the color of the rectangle in the preceding subliminal prime item than when it was not. These effects replicate the ones classically reported in studies using visible items and suggest that cognitive control was transferred from the subliminal prime to the visible probe items. Taken together, our results demonstrate that cognitive control can operate on conflicting subliminal information.     

Effects of anxiety and attention control on processing pictorial and linguistic emotional information

This study investigated the role of executive attention control in modulating selective processing of emotional information in anxiety. It was hypothesized that the combination of high anxiety and poor attention control would be associated with greater difficulty in ignoring task-irrelevant threat-related information. The study included both faces and words as stimuli. Cognitive interference effects were assessed using two emotional Stroop tasks: one with angry, fearful, happy and neutral faces, and one with threat-related, positive, and neutral words. An objective measure of attention control was obtained from the Attention network task. There were four participant groups with high/low trait anxiety and high/low attention control. Results indicated that the combination of high anxiety and poor attention control was associated with greater cognitive interference by emotional faces (including angry faces), compared to neutral faces. This interference effect was not evident in participants with high anxiety and high attentional control, or in low-anxious individuals. There was no evidence of associations between anxiety, attention control, and the interference effect of emotional words. Results indicate that high anxiety and poor attention control together predict enhanced processing of emotionally salient information, such as angry facial expressions. Implications for models of emotion processing are discussed.     

Adolescent risk-taking is predicted by individual differences in cognitive control over emotional,but not non-emotional,response conflict

While much research on adolescent risk behaviour has focused on the development of prefrontal self-regulatory mechanisms, prior studies have elicited mixed evidence of a relationship between individual differences in the capacity for self-regulation and individual differences in risk taking. To explain these inconsistent findings, it has been suggested that the capacity for self-regulation may be, for most adolescents, adequately mature to produce adaptive behaviour in non-affective, “cold” circumstances, but that adolescents have a more difficult time exerting control in affective, “hot” contexts. To further explore this claim, the present study examined individual differences in self-control in the face of affective and non-affective response conflict, and examined whether differences in the functioning of cognitive control processes under these different conditions was related to risk taking. Participants completed a cognitive Stroop task, an emotional Stroop task, and a risky driving task known as the Stoplight game. Regression analyses showed that performance on the emotional Stroop task predicted laboratory risk-taking in the driving task, whereas performance on the cognitive Stroop task did not exhibit the same trend. This pattern of results is consistent with theories of adolescent risk-taking that emphasise the impacts of affective contextual influences on the ability to enact effective cognitive control.     

The Stroop effect at 80: The competition between stimulus control and cognitive control

For more than 80 years, researchers have examined the interference between automatic processing of stimuli, such as the meaning of color words, on performance of a controlled‐processing task such as naming the color in which words are printed. The Stroop effect and its many variations provide an ideal test platform for examining the competition between stimulus control and cognitive control of attention, as reflected in behavior. The two experiments reported here show that rhesus monkeys, like human adults, show interference from incongruous stimulus conditions in a number‐Stroop task, and that the monkeys may be particularly susceptible to influence from response strength and less able, relative to human adults, of using executive attention to minimize this interference.     

Cross-cultural differences in processes underlying sequential cognitive activity

Abstract: Similarities and differences in the processes underlying performance on the Stroop Color-Word Test (Card A, 100 color words/black ink; Card B, 100 color patches; Card C, 100 color words/incongruous ink color) were investigated with Japanese ( N = 96) and Americans ( N = 96) with stimulus items read: (a) vertically, top to bottom; and (b) horizontally, left to right. Total time as well as errors, namely, those involved with the underlying processes of identification and sequential organization, were significantly longer or more frequent on Card C than on Cards A and B for both nationalities and spatial arrangements. Further, greater frequency of serial organization errors in females than in males was obtained for the Japanese group, and the opposite for the American group. The implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Inhibitory control gains from higher-order cognitive strategy training

The present study examined the transfer of higher-order cognitive strategy training to inhibitory control. Middle school students enrolled in a comprehension- and reasoning-focused cognitive strategy training program and passive controls participated. The training program taught students a set of steps for inferring essential gist or themes from materials. Both before and after training or a comparable duration in the case of the passive controls, participants completed a semantically cued Go/No-Go task that was designed to assess the effects of depth of semantic processing on response inhibition and components of event-related potentials (ERP) related to response inhibition. Depth of semantic processing was manipulated by varying the level of semantic categorization required for response selection and inhibition. The SMART-trained group showed inhibitory control gains and changes in fronto-central P3 ERP amplitudes on inhibition trials; whereas, the control group did not. The results provide evidence of the transfer of higher-order cognitive strategy training to inhibitory control and modulation of ERPs associated with semantically cued inhibitory control. The findings are discussed in terms of implications for cognitive strategy training, models of cognitive abilities, and education.