Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, United States of America.
Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2018 May 31;13(5):e0197812. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0197812. eCollection 2018.
Context processing involves a flexible and continually updated representation of task relevant information and is a core aspect of cognitive control. The expectancy AX Continuous Performance Test (AXCPT) was designed to specifically measure context processing and has been widely applied to elucidate mechanisms of cognitive control and their impairments in conditions such as aging and schizophrenia. Here we present a large-sample, cross-sectional study of context processing aimed at characterizing its normal development from childhood to early adulthood (8 to 22 years old). We track the age-related changes in the standard AXCPT performance measures and also investigate their validity using detailed data-driven method. We show how critical maturational changes in context processing can be validly tracked from mid-adolescence onward with increasing reliance on preparatory, proactive strategies well into early adulthood. However, the early maturation from childhood into adolescence showed a sharp, two-fold discontinuity: while standard measures provide partially conflicting results suggesting an early worsening of proactive strategies, further analyses do not support their validity during this period. Our findings advocate the existence of multiple preparatory strategies that cannot be captured by indices that assume a simple dichotomy of proactive vs. reactive strategies. When evaluating context processing differences over development or in clinical populations, we advocate the explicit testing of the assumptions underlying standard AXCPT indices through complementary data-driven methods.
语境处理涉及到对任务相关信息的灵活和不断更新的表示，是认知控制的核心方面。预期 AX 连续绩效测试 (AXCPT) 旨在专门测量语境处理，并已广泛应用于阐明认知控制的机制及其在衰老和精神分裂症等情况下的损伤。在这里，我们进行了一项大规模的横断面研究，旨在描述从儿童期到成年早期（8 至 22 岁）的语境处理的正常发展。我们跟踪了标准 AXCPT 绩效指标的年龄相关变化，并使用详细的数据驱动方法研究了它们的有效性。我们展示了如何从青少年中期开始，通过越来越依赖预备性、前瞻性策略，有效地跟踪语境处理的关键成熟变化，并一直延续到成年早期。然而，从儿童期到青春期的早期成熟表现出明显的、两倍的不连续性：虽然标准测量结果提供了部分相互矛盾的结果，表明前瞻性策略早期恶化，但进一步的分析并不支持在这一时期其有效性。我们的研究结果表明，存在多种预备策略，不能用假设简单的主动策略与被动策略二分法的指标来捕捉。在评估发展过程或临床人群中的语境处理差异时，我们提倡通过补充数据驱动方法来明确测试标准 AXCPT 指标的假设。
