Development of hot and cool executive function during the transition to adolescence

This study examined the development of executive function (EF) in a typically developing sample from middle childhood to adolescence using a range of tasks varying in affective significance. A total of 102 participants between 8 and 15 years of age completed the Iowa Gambling Task, the Color Word Stroop, a Delay Discounting task, and a Digit Span task. Age-related improvements were found on all tasks, but improvements on relatively cool tasks (Color Word Stroop and Backward Digit Span) occurred earlier in this age range, whereas improvements on relatively hot tasks (Iowa Gambling Task and Delay Discounting) were more gradual and occurred later. Exploratory factor analysis indicated that performance on all tasks could be accounted for by a single-factor model. Together, these findings indicate that although similar abilities may underlie both hot and cool EF, hot EF develops relatively slowly, which may have implications for the risky behavior often observed during adolescence. Future work should include additional measures to characterize more intensively the development of both hot and cool EF during the transition to adolescence.     

Prospective relations between maternal autonomy support and child executive functioning: investigating the mediating role of child language ability

Although emerging evidence suggests that parental behavior is related to the development of child executive functioning (EF), the mechanisms through which parenting affects child EF have yet to be investigated. The goal of this study was to examine the potential mediating role of child language in the prospective relation between maternal autonomy support and child EF. A total of 53 mother–infant dyads took part in three home visits at 15 months, 2 years, and 3 years, allowing for the assessment of maternal autonomy support (T1), child expressive vocabulary (T2), and child EF (T3). The results suggested that child language played a mediating role in the relation between maternal autonomy support and child performance on EF tasks entailing a strong impulse control component above and beyond child previous EF and family socioeconomic status (SES). In contrast, no such mediating role of language was found with EF tasks tapping mostly into working memory and set shifting. Thus, this study highlights one pathway through which parenting can affect child executive control.     

Resisting the temptation to compete: Self-control promotes cooperation in mixed-motive interactions

This article provides a self-control analysis of mixed-motive interactions, including 2-person social dilemmas and bargaining encounters. We propose that mixed-motive interactions pose a self-control conflict between pursuing immediate benefits through competition and pursuing long-term benefits through cooperation. As such, anticipating high (vs. low) barriers to successful outcomes triggers counteractive self-control operations that increase cooperation, so long as people believe that by doing so they can influence others to reciprocate.     

Extended pausing by humans on multiple fixed-ratio schedules with varied reinforcer magnitude and response requirements

We conducted three experiments to reproduce and extend Perone and Courtney's (1992) study of pausing at the beginning of fixed-ratio schedules. In a multiple schedule with unequal amounts of food across two components, they found that pigeons paused longest in the component associated with the smaller amount of food (the lean component), but only when it was preceded by the rich component. In our studies, adults with mild intellectual disabilities responded on a touch-sensitive computer monitor to produce money. In Experiment 1, the multiple-schedule components differed in both response requirement and reinforcer magnitude (i.e., the rich component required fewer responses and produced more money than the lean component). Effects shown with pigeons were reproduced in all 7 participants. In Experiment 2, we removed the stimuli that signaled the two schedule components, and participants' extended pausing was eliminated. In Experiment 3, to assess sensitivity to reinforcer magnitude versus fixed-ratio size, we presented conditions with equal ratio sizes but disparate magnitudes and conditions with equal magnitudes but disparate ratio sizes. Sensitivity to these manipulations was idiosyncratic. The present experiments obtained schedule control in verbally competent human participants and, despite procedural differences, we reproduced findings with animal participants. We showed that pausing is jointly determined by past conditions of reinforcement and stimuli correlated with upcoming conditions.     

Trait anxiety, working memory capacity, and the effectiveness of memory suppression

We aimed at replicating the finding that humans are able to suppress unwanted memories, and tested whether this ability varies with individual differences in working memory capacity, trait anxiety and defensiveness. In a think/no-think experiment, participants either recalled or suppressed previously learned words for 0, 8 or 16 times. Suppression did not have an overall detrimental effect on later recall performance. However, higher recall rates after repeated suppression were exclusively predicted by higher trait anxiety. These results are discussed in relation to current theories on anxiety and executive control.     

Hail the impossible: p-values, evidence, and likelihood

Significance testing based on p-values is standard in psychological research and teaching. Typically, research articles and textbooks present and use p as a measure of statistical evidence against the null hypothesis (the Fisherian interpretation), although using concepts and tools based on a completely different usage of p as a tool for controlling long-term decision errors (the Neyman-Pearson interpretation). There are four major problems with using p as a measure of evidence and these problems are often overlooked in the domain of psychology. First, p is uniformly distributed under the null hypothesis and can therefore never indicate evidence for the null. Second, p is conditioned solely on the null hypothesis and is therefore unsuited to quantify evidence, because evidence is always relative in the sense of being evidence for or against a hypothesis relative to another hypothesis. Third, p designates probability of obtaining evidence (given the null), rather than strength of evidence. Fourth, p depends on unobserved data and subjective intentions and therefore implies, given the evidential interpretation, that the evidential strength of observed data depends on things that did not happen and subjective intentions. In sum, using p in the Fisherian sense as a measure of statistical evidence is deeply problematic, both statistically and conceptually, while the Neyman-Pearson interpretation is not about evidence at all. In contrast, the likelihood ratio escapes the above problems and is recommended as a tool for psychologists to represent the statistical evidence conveyed by obtained data relative to two hypotheses.     

Controlling anger in self-reported sober and alcohol intoxicated states: moderating effects of trait anger and alcohol consumption

Controlling anger in self-reported sober and alcohol intoxicated states: Moderating effects of trait anger and alcohol consumption. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 52, 382-388. Retrospective self-reports about prior sober and alcohol intoxicated states were explored to reveal moderating effects of trait anger and alcohol consumption on anger control. The analyses were based on self-reports of trait anger and alcohol consumption as well as self-reports of the participants' typical levels of anger control in sober and alcohol intoxicated states in a population based sample of Finnish twins and their siblings (N = 4,852). The reported levels of anger control were lower regarding prior alcohol intoxicated states than sober states. A three-way interaction between alcohol consumption, trait anger and anger control was found. Whereas no interaction between alcohol consumption and trait anger was found in the self-reported sober state, there was an interactive effect of trait anger and alcohol consumption on anger control in the intoxicated state, indicating that the difference in anger control between those with high levels of alcohol consumption and those with low levels, was greater at higher levels of trait anger. Women had lower levels of anger control than men, but the relationship between trait anger, alcohol consumption and anger control was similar for both genders. In conclusion, the results showed that those with high levels of trait anger and alcohol consumption showed the lowest levels of anger control in self-reported alcohol intoxicated states, and indicate the importance of separating between anger control when sober and intoxicated since anger control seems to be differently related to at least trait anger and alcohol consumption in these states.     

Two types of behavioral inhibition: Relations to effortful control and attention in school children

This study aimed to examine the relationship of two types of behavioral inhibition, social inhibition and nonsocial inhibition, to effortful control and attention in 7–9-year olds. Social and nonsocial inhibition and effortful control were assessed by questionnaires. The child version of the Attention Network Task was used to measure attention including alerting, orienting and executive attention. Results indicated that in girls, social inhibition was negatively related to effortful control and alerting, while nonsocial inhibition was positively related to orienting; there was an interaction between social and nonsocial inhibition in predicting executive attention in boys. Thus, it is of great significance to differentiate social and nonsocial inhibition when examining the association between behavioral inhibition and effortful control and attention in school-age children.     

Proprioceptive impairment and postural orientation control in Parkinson's disease

Impairment of postural control is a common consequence of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Increasing evidences demonstrate that the pathophysiology of postural disorders in PD includes deficits in proprioceptive processing and integration. However, the nature of these deficits has not been thoroughly examined. We propose to establish a link between proprioceptive impairments and postural deficits in PD using two different experimental approaches manipulating proprioceptive information. In the first one, the subjects stood on a platform that tilted slowly with oscillatory angular movements in the frontal or sagittal planes. The amplitude and frequency of these movements were kept below the semicircular canal perception threshold. Subjects were asked to maintain vertical body posture with and without vision. The orientations of body segments were analyzed. In the second one, the postural control was tested using the tendon-vibration method, which is known to generate illusory movement sensations and postural reactions. Vibrations were applied to ankle muscles. The subject’s whole-body motor responses were analyzed from center of pressure displacements.In the first experiment, the parkinsonian patients (PP) were unable to maintain the vertical trunk orientation without vision. Their performances with vision improved, without fully reaching the level of control subjects (CS). In the second experiment, the postural reactions of the PP were similar to those of the CS at the beginning of the perturbation and increased drastically at the end of the perturbation’s period as compared to those of CS and could induce fall.These results will bring new concepts to the sensorimotor postural control, to the physiopathology of posture, equilibrium and falls in PD and to the role of basal ganglia pathways in proprioception integration. Nevertheless, in order to assess precisely the role played by sensorimotor integration deficits in postural impairments in PD, further studies establishing the links between clinical features and abnormalities are now required.