1 Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge.
2 Department of Educational Psychology, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Psychol Sci. 2017 May;28(5):555-566. doi: 10.1177/0956797616687812. Epub 2017 Apr 6.
Although Asian preschoolers acquire executive functions (EFs) earlier than their Western counterparts, little is known about whether this advantage persists into later childhood and adulthood. To address this gap, in the current study we gave four computerized EF tasks (providing measures of inhibition, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and planning) to a large sample ( n = 1,427) of 9- to 16-year-olds and their parents. All participants lived in either the United Kingdom or Hong Kong. Our findings highlight the importance of combining developmental and cultural perspectives and show both similarities and contrasts across sites. Specifically, adults' EF performance did not differ between the two sites; age-related changes in executive function for both the children and the parents appeared to be culturally invariant, as did a modest intergenerational correlation. In contrast, school-age children and young adolescents in Hong Kong outperformed their United Kingdom counterparts on all four EF tasks, a difference consistent with previous findings from preschool children.
尽管亚洲学龄前儿童比西方儿童更早地获得执行功能（EFs），但对于这种优势是否会持续到儿童后期和成年期知之甚少。为了解决这一差距，在当前的研究中，我们对一大群 9 至 16 岁的儿童及其父母（ n = 1,427）进行了四项计算机化的 EF 任务（提供抑制、工作记忆、认知灵活性和计划的测量）。所有参与者都居住在英国或中国香港。我们的研究结果强调了结合发展和文化视角的重要性，并展示了不同地点之间的相似之处和差异。具体来说，两个地点的成年人的 EF 表现没有差异；儿童和父母的执行功能的年龄相关变化似乎具有文化不变性，代际相关性也适度。相比之下，香港的学龄儿童和青少年在所有四项 EF 任务中的表现均优于英国同龄人，这一差异与之前对学龄前儿童的发现一致。
