Bauer Jessie-Raye, Martinez Joel E, Roe Mary Abbe, Church Jessica A
Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, AustinTX, United States.
Department of Psychology, Princeton University, PrincetonNJ, United States.
Front Psychol. 2017 Aug 3;8:1304. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01304. eCollection 2017.
Two behavioral experiments assessed the plasticity and short-term improvement of task switching in 215 children and adults. Specifically, we studied manipulations of cued attention to different features of a target stimulus as a way to assess the development of cognitive flexibility. Each experiment had multiple levels of difficulty via manipulation of number of cued features (2-4) and number of response options (2 or 4). Working memory demand was manipulated across the two experiments. Impact of memory demand and task level manipulations on task accuracy and response times were measured. There were three overall goals: First, these task manipulations (number of cued features, response choices, and working memory load) were tested to assess the stability of group differences in performance between children ages 6-16 years and adults 18-27 years, with the goal of reducing age group differences. Second, age-related transitions to adult-level performance were examined within subgroups of the child sample. Third, short-term improvement from the beginning to the end of the study session was measured to probe whether children can improve with task experience. Attempts to use task manipulations to reduce age differences in cued task switching performance were unsuccessful: children performed consistently worse and were more susceptible to task manipulations than adults. However, across both studies, adult-like performance was observed around mid-adolescence, by ages 13-16 years. Certain task manipulations, especially increasing number of response options when working memory demand was low, produced differences from adults even in the oldest children. Interestingly, there was similar performance improvement with practice for both child and adult groups. The higher memory demand version of the task (Experiment 2) prompted greater short-term improvement in accuracy and response times than the lower memory demand version (Experiment 1). These results reveal stable differences in cued switching performance over development, but also relative flexibility within a given individual over time.
两项行为实验评估了215名儿童和成人在任务切换方面的可塑性和短期改善情况。具体而言，我们研究了通过提示对目标刺激的不同特征的注意来评估认知灵活性的发展。每个实验通过操纵提示特征的数量（2 - 4个）和反应选项的数量（2个或4个）设置了多个难度级别。在两个实验中对工作记忆需求进行了操纵。测量了记忆需求和任务级别操纵对任务准确性和反应时间的影响。有三个总体目标：第一，测试这些任务操纵（提示特征的数量、反应选择和工作记忆负荷）以评估6至16岁儿童与18至27岁成年人在表现上的组间差异的稳定性，目标是减少年龄组差异。第二，在儿童样本的子组中研究与年龄相关的向成人水平表现的转变。第三，测量从研究时段开始到结束的短期改善情况，以探究儿童是否能通过任务经验得到提高。试图通过任务操纵来减少提示任务切换表现中的年龄差异并不成功：儿童的表现始终较差，并且比成年人更容易受到任务操纵的影响。然而，在两项研究中，在13至16岁左右的青春期中期观察到了类似成人的表现。某些任务操纵，特别是在工作记忆需求较低时增加反应选项数量，即使在年龄最大的儿童中也产生了与成年人的差异。有趣的是，儿童组和成人组在练习中都有类似的表现改善。任务的高记忆需求版本（实验2）比低记忆需求版本（实验1）在准确性和反应时间上促使了更大的短期改善。这些结果揭示了在整个发展过程中提示切换表现的稳定差异，但也显示了个体在给定时间内的相对灵活性。
