Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA.
Psychology Department, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA.
Dev Sci. 2018 Mar;21(2). doi: 10.1111/desc.12523. Epub 2017 Feb 24.
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.
研究人员提出，两种具有不同类型抑制作用的过程支持抑制控制：一个涉及运动输出全局抑制的响应阈值调整过程，以及一个涉及协同活动反应替代物之间竞争抑制的冲突解决过程。为了针对这些过程进行开发，我们在执行 Eriksen 侧翼任务时测量了 5 至 10 岁儿童（实验 1）和成人（实验 2）的伸手行为。这种方法提供了两个关键指标：启动时间（从刺激开始到运动开始之间的时间流逝）和到达曲率（运动偏离所选目标的直接路径的程度）。我们认为，启动时间通过索引在开始运动之前经历的运动停止程度来反映响应阈值调整过程，而到达曲率通过索引在运动过程中反应替代物之间的协同激活程度来反映冲突解决过程。我们的研究结果支持这一说法，揭示了启动时间和曲率方面的不同模式效应，以及儿童期和成年期之间的发散发展轨迹。这些发现为全局抑制和竞争抑制的分离提供了行为证据，并为抑制控制的发展提供了新的见解。
