Department of Psychology and Center for Mind and Brain, University of California-Davis, Davis, CA, USA.
School of Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2021 Jun;21(3):561-572. doi: 10.3758/s13415-020-00832-2. Epub 2020 Oct 2.
Developmental changes in executive function are often explained in terms of core cognitive processes and associated neural substrates. For example, younger children tend to engage control reactively in the moment as needed, whereas older children increasingly engage control proactively, in anticipation of needing it. Such developments may reflect increasing capacities for active maintenance dependent upon dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. However, younger children will engage proactive control when reactive control is made more difficult, suggesting that developmental changes may also reflect decisions about whether to engage control, and how. We tested awareness of temporal control demands and associated task choices in 5-year-olds and 10-year-olds and adults using a demand selection task. Participants chose between one task that enabled proactive control and another task that enabled reactive control. Adults reported awareness of these different control demands and preferentially played the proactive task option. Ten-year-olds reported awareness of control demands but selected task options at chance. Five-year-olds showed neither awareness nor task preference, but a subsample who exhibited awareness of control demands preferentially played the reactive task option, mirroring their typical control mode. Thus, developmental improvements in executive function may in part reflect better awareness of cognitive demands and adaptive behavior, which may in turn reflect changes in dorsal anterior cingulate in signaling task demands to lateral prefrontal cortex.
执行功能的发展变化通常可以用核心认知过程和相关的神经基质来解释。例如，年幼的孩子往往会在需要时被动地控制自己的行为，而年长的孩子则会主动地控制自己的行为，以便在需要时能够更好地应对。这些发展可能反映了主动维持能力的增强，这种能力依赖于背外侧前额叶皮层。然而，当被动控制变得更加困难时，年幼的孩子也会主动参与控制，这表明发展变化也可能反映了是否以及如何参与控制的决策。我们使用需求选择任务测试了 5 岁、10 岁和成年人对时间控制需求的意识以及相关的任务选择。参与者可以在一个允许主动控制的任务和另一个允许被动控制的任务之间进行选择。成年人报告了对这些不同控制需求的意识，并优先选择了主动任务选项。10 岁的孩子报告了对控制需求的意识，但随机选择了任务选项。5 岁的孩子既没有表现出意识也没有表现出任务偏好，但一个表现出对控制需求的意识的子样本优先选择了被动任务选项，这反映了他们典型的控制模式。因此，执行功能的发展改善可能部分反映了对认知需求和适应性行为的更好意识，这反过来又可能反映了背侧前扣带回在向外侧前额叶皮层发出任务需求信号方面的变化。
