Roebers Claudia M
Institute of Psychology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
Front Psychol. 2022 Aug 11;13:923615. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.923615. eCollection 2022.
The Heart and Flower task is used worldwide to measure age-dependent and individual differences in executive functions and/or cognitive control. The task reliably maps age and individual differences and these have consistently been found to be predictive for different aspects of school readiness and academic achievement. The idea has been put forward that there is a developmental shift in how children approach such a task. While 6-year-olds' tend to adapt their task strategy and reactively, older children increasingly engage in proactive cognitive control. Proactive cognitive control entails finding the right response speed without risking errors, always dependent on the cognitive conflict. The main goal of the present contribution was to examine children's adjustments of response speed as a function of age and cognitive conflict by addressing RTs surrounding errors (i.e., errors and post-error trials). Data from a large sample with three age groups was used ( = 106 6-year-olds' with a mean age of 6 years; 3 months; = 108 7-year-olds' with a mean age of 7 years; 4 months; = 78 8-year-olds' with a mean age of 8 years; 1 month). Response speed adjustments and the development thereof were targeted both across the Flower and Mixed block, respectively, and within these blocks focusing on errors and post-error slowing. Results revealed evidence for a developmental shift toward more efficient proactive cognitive control between 6 and 8 years of age, with the older but not the younger children strategically slowing down in the Mixed block and smoother post-error slowing. At the same time, we found that even the youngest age group has emerging proactive cognitive control skills at their disposal when addressing post-error slowing in the Flower block. The present study thus tracks the early roots of later efficient executive functions and cognitive control, contributes to a better understanding of how developmental progression in cognitive control is achieved, and highlights new avenues for research in this domain.
“心花”任务在全球范围内被用于测量执行功能和/或认知控制方面与年龄相关的个体差异。该任务能够可靠地反映年龄和个体差异，并且这些差异一直被发现对入学准备和学业成绩的不同方面具有预测作用。有人提出，儿童处理此类任务的方式存在发展性转变。6岁儿童倾向于适应性地调整任务策略并做出反应，而年龄较大的儿童则越来越多地进行主动认知控制。主动认知控制需要在不冒错误风险的情况下找到合适的反应速度，这始终取决于认知冲突。本研究的主要目的是通过处理围绕错误的反应时（即错误和错误后试验）来检验儿童作为年龄和认知冲突函数的反应速度调整。使用了来自三个年龄组的大样本数据（n = 106名6岁儿童，平均年龄为6岁3个月；n = 108名7岁儿童，平均年龄为7岁4个月；n = 78名8岁儿童，平均年龄为8岁1个月）。分别在“花朵”和“混合”模块中，以及在这些模块中聚焦于错误和错误后减慢的情况下，针对反应速度调整及其发展进行了研究。结果显示，有证据表明在6至8岁之间向更有效的主动认知控制发生了发展性转变，年龄较大而非较小的儿童在“混合”模块中有策略地减慢速度，并且错误后减慢更平稳。同时，我们发现，即使是最年幼的年龄组在处理“花朵”模块中的错误后减慢时也具备了初步的主动认知控制技能。因此，本研究追踪了后期有效执行功能和认知控制的早期根源，有助于更好地理解认知控制的发展进程是如何实现的，并突出了该领域新的研究途径。
