Psychology Department, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada.
Biol Psychol. 2013 May;93(2):325-33. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2013.03.001. Epub 2013 Mar 22.
Executive functioning is considered a powerful predictor of behavioral and mental health outcomes during adolescence. Our question was whether executive functioning skills, normally considered "top-down" processes, are related to automatic aspects of selective attention. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from typically-developing 12-14-year-old adolescents as they responded to tones presented in attended and unattended channels in an auditory selective attention task. Examining these ERPs in relation to parental reports on the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) revealed that an early frontal positivity (EFP) elicited by to-be-ignored/unattended tones was larger in those with poorer executive functions, driven by scores on the BRIEF Metacognition Index. As is traditionally found, N1 amplitudes were more negative for the to-be-attended rather than unattended tones. Additionally, N1 latencies to unattended tones correlated with parent-ratings on the BRIEF Behavior Regulation Index, where shorter latencies predicted better executive functions. Results suggest that the ability to disengage attention from distractor information in the early stages of stimulus processing is associated with adolescent executive functioning skills.
执行功能被认为是青少年时期行为和心理健康结果的有力预测因素。我们的问题是，执行功能技能（通常被认为是“自上而下”的过程）是否与选择性注意的自动方面有关。当他们在听觉选择性注意任务中对注意和未注意通道中的音调做出反应时，记录了来自正常发育的 12-14 岁青少年的事件相关电位（ERP）。通过与父母对执行功能行为评定量表（BRIEF）的报告相关检查这些 ERP，发现由 BRIEF 元认知指数得分驱动，对要忽略/未注意的音调产生的早期额叶正波（EFP）在执行功能较差的人中更大。与传统发现一样，对于要注意的音调，N1 振幅比未注意的音调更负。此外，未注意音调的 N1 潜伏期与 BRIEF 行为调节指数的父母评分相关，其中较短的潜伏期预示着更好的执行功能。结果表明，在刺激处理的早期阶段从干扰信息中转移注意力的能力与青少年的执行功能技能有关。
