Development of inhibition and switching: a longitudinal study of the maturation of interference suppression and reversal processes during childhood

Inhibition and switching are executive functions (EFs) that have different developmental trajectories across childhood. The development of specific processes unique to each EF may contribute to these trajectories. Interference suppression and reversal were examined in a large sample of children aged 7 and 9 years (n = 120) and followed-up after two-years to investigate developmental trajectories of inhibition and switching. The N2 and P3b components provided neural correlates of conflict monitoring and attentional processing of conflict involved in interference suppression and reversal. Interference suppression improved over time, however, switching performance did not significantly change between 7-11 years. Improvements in correct RT with age and time indicated increased efficiency of stimulus evaluation, response preparation and execution. N2 amplitude decreased with both age and time, indicating less reliance on conflict monitoring to signal cognitive control to manage stimulus and response conflict. P3b amplitude modulations indicated that different amounts of attention were allocated to updating mental representations of interference suppression and reversal task features. These data indicated different developmental trajectories of specific processes unique to inhibition and switching across the childhood period of 7-11 years, providing further empirical evidence that 7-11 years is a critical period for cognitive development

Context-oriented performance biases in cognitive control

Cognitive control, the ability to guide goal-directed behavior, is comprised of a variety of cognitive components functioning in a dynamic balance. Control adjustments are commonly cast as temporally local adaptations reflecting recently encountered task conflict; however, global control processes representing broad task expectancies are relatively unexplored. In an electroencephalographic (EEG) study of a prepotent response inhibition task, we tested whether the congruency effect, where performance tends to be worse for trials involving controlled processes, would be impacted by the overall task context as defined by trial-type proportions. As the proportion of high-control trials increased, we observed that accuracy improved in a more demanding, high-control condition while worsening in the less demanding, low-control condition. More interestingly, this tradeoff resulted in a reversed congruency effect in accuracy for task contexts dominated by high control trials. Furthermore, delay period EEG spectral power in the alpha-frequency band (i.e., 9-13 Hz)—a putative inhibitory mechanism (Klimesch, 2012)—was found to modulate with the task. A significant trial condition by task context interaction revealed a positive monotonic association between accuracy and induced alpha synchrony in low control task contexts with a negative monotonic association in the high control context. Our behavioral results are consistent with cognitive control adjustments occurring through an ‘adaptation-by-binding’ which posits that the continuous arousal resulting from a high conflict context strengthens active task and sensory representations even if disadvantageous to automatic processes (Verguts & Notebaert, 2009). Further, ongoing synchronous cortical alpha-band oscillations could serve as a potential neural mechanism by which this binding effect is achieved

Negative affordance effect : automatic response inhibition triggered by handle orientation of non-target object

Habituated response tendency associated with affordance of an object is automatically inhibited if this affordance cue is extracted from a non-target object. This study presents two go/no-go experiments investigating whether this response control operates in response selection processes and whether it is linked to conflict-monitoring mechanisms. In the first experiment, the participants performed responses with one hand, and in the second experiment, with two hands. In addition, both experiments consisted of two blocks with varying frequency of go conditions (25%-go vs. 75%-go). The non-target-related response inhibition effect was only observed in Experiment 2 when the task required selecting between two hands. Additionally, the results did not reveal patterns typically related to conflict monitoring when go-frequency is manipulated and when a stimulus-response compatibility effect is examined relative to congruency condition of the previous trial. The study shows that the non-target-related response inhibition assists hand selection and is relatively resistant to conflict-monitoring processes.Peer reviewe

Thou Shalt Lie: Anticipatory Deflection Management

As people visualize ongoing or future interactions, do they lie to maintain situational congruency? While visualizing various behavioral options, or the outcomes of such behaviors, people have a unique opportunity to preemptively alter the definition of the situation based on anticipated sentiments. Affect Control Theory emphasizes the salience of deflection management in everyday life. This is otherwise known as an attempted realignment of experiences and expectations in the face of situational incongruency such as the bizarre. Using a vignette experiment, I extend Affect Control Theory by illuminating deflection not yet experienced but instead anticipated. I do so by estimating the odds of lying in an ongoing interaction where an honest retelling would incur high deflection. To further inform this cognitive process, I provide qualitative explanations from participants on why they chose their responses and how the dynamics of their relationship mattered, highlighting the underlying social and cognitive processes behind active decision making in ongoing interactions

Anticipating conflict facilitates controlled stimulus-response selection.

Cognitive control can be triggered in reaction to previous conflict, as suggested by the finding of sequential effects in conflict tasks. Can control also be triggered proactively by presenting cues predicting conflict ("proactive control")? We exploited the high temporal resolution of ERPs and controlled for sequential effects to ask whether proactive control based on anticipating conflict modulates neural activity related to cognitive control, as may be predicted from the conflict-monitoring model. ERPs associated with conflict detection (N2) were measured during a cued flanker task. Symbolic cues were either informative or neutral with respect to whether the target involved conflicting or congruent responses. Sequential effects were controlled by analyzing the congruency of the previous trial. The results showed that cueing conflict facilitated conflict resolution and reduced the N2 latency. Other potentials (frontal N1 and P3) were also modulated by cueing conflict. Cueing effects were most evident after congruent than after incongruent trials. This interaction between cueing and sequential effects suggests neural overlap between the control networks triggered by proactive and reactive signals. This finding clarifies why previous neuroimaging studies, in which reactive sequential effects were not controlled, have rarely found anticipatory effects upon conflict-related activity. Finally, the high temporal resolution of ERPs was critical to reveal a temporal modulation of conflict detection by proactive control. This novel finding suggests that anticipating conflict speeds up conflict detection and resolution. Recent research suggests that this anticipatory mechanism may be mediated by preactivation of ACC during the preparatory interval

Electrophysiological and functional magnetic resonance imaging investigations on the influence of spatial and feature-based attention on the flanker effect

Attention represents an almost ubiquitous field in neuroscientific research. It can be manipulated in many ways including direction, intensity or selectivity of attention. An unanswered question remains concerning the possibility to suppress distracting information through top-down attentional control. The present doctoral thesis addresses this topic and furthermore contrasts two main attention types (spatial and feature-based allocation). For this purpose, both anatomical and temporal data were collected and brought together in a common source analysis

Enseñanza del saber táctico en categorías formativas de básquetbol

El objetivo general fue analizar la enseñanza y aplicación del saber táctico en categorías formativas de basquetbol. Para lo cual se realizaron dos estudios: (a) Opinión de los entrenadores de basquetbol sobre la enseñanza del saber táctico en las categorías formativas: Objetivo: reconocer la importancia dada por los entrenadores de basquetbol a la enseñanza del saber táctico en categorías U-13 y U-15. Metodología: estudio transversal descriptivo. Participaron 43 entrenadores de la ciudad de Santa Fe (Argentina) con categoría ENEBA (Escuela Nacional de Entrenadores en Basquetbol de Argentina) y experiencia de enseñanza-aprendizaje-entrenamiento en categorías U-13 y U-15. Se categorizaron los métodos de entrenamiento en analítico, global, de confrontación, parcial, concepto recreativo del juego deportivo y situacional (Greco, 1995). Tratamiento estadístico con software SPSS versión 17.0. Resultados: experiencia de los entrenadores X ̅=14,7 ± 3,9 años. Moda de frecuencia semanal de entrenamiento U-13 = 3 sesiones x 75 minutos, U-15 = 3 sesiones x 90 minutos. Importancia de la táctica U-13: ∑ muy + totalmente importante = 45,0%, U-15=53,4%; U-13: ∑ poca + muy poca importancia = 13,3%, U-15=3,3%. Preponderancia del método situacional durante el periodo competitivo (Me=28,6%, IC=22,36 – 34,84), ∑ muy + totalmente importante = 49% (n=21). (b) Aplicación del saber táctico en categorías formativas de basquetbol: Objetivo: describir la aplicación del saber táctico realizada por los jugadores de basquetbol de categoría U-13 y U-15 en situación real de competición mediante el análisis de: (i) Dinámicas de Creación de Espacios (DCE) realizadas que precedieron al término de la posesión del balón en lanzamiento, falta o pérdida de balón en situaciones contra defensa individual; (ii) determinación de la eficiencia de las DCE contra defensa individual; y (iii) utilización de las Dinámicas de Protección de Espacios (DPE) en defensa individual. Metodología: estudio analítico observacional. Se filmaron y analizaron 12 partidos de categoría U-13 y 12 de U-15 (Campeonato Interasociaciones - Federación Basquetbol Provincia de Santa Fe – Argentina). Para el análisis se utilizaron las Dinámicas de Creación de Espacios (DCE) (LAMAS et al., 2011) y las Dinámicas de Protección de Espacios (DPE) (LAMAS, 2012; SANTANA et al., 2015). Tratamiento estadístico con software SPSS versión 17.0.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

Trait anxiety, cognitive control, and visual affect

High anxiety may relate to the enhanced processing of threat-related stimuli, enhanced cognitive distraction, and/or altered conflict resolution. It was the purpose of this thesis to carry out a series of behavioural experiments designed to tap into these neuro-cognitive functions. Facial stimuli were used in computerised reaction time experiments. Personality traits were assessed using psychometric measures. The primary aim of this thesis was to determine how trait anxiety (and social anxiety) relates to the recognition of emotional facial expressions, how trait anxiety relates to distraction by other emotional faces (or emotional words) when identifying emotional facial expressions, how trait anxiety relates to differences in how emotional conflict resolution is achieved, and to determine how trait anxiety relates to other personality traits. Moreover this work aimed to develop a novel emotional face conflict resolution paradigm that is grounded in neuroscientific theory. Results showed that high trait and social anxiety are (differentially) related to the enhanced processing of threat-related faces, but provided no evidence that trait anxiety is related to distraction caused by peripheral emotional faces (threat-related or otherwise). However, we found a very specific distracting effect of happy words that was related to trait anxiety. We found that trait anxiety was somewhat related to conflict resolution but further work is required before this relationship can be properly understood. These results are discussed in detail, in relation to established theories of anxiety. My original contribution to knowledge is a detailed analysis of how sub-clinical levels of anxiety relate to emotional face discrimination, emotional distraction (when emotional face discrimination is required), and emotional conflict resolution (when emotional face discrimination is required). My original contribution to knowledge is also a detailed examination of how sub-clinical anxiety relates to other personality constructs, and the development of a novel but scientifically grounded emotional face flanker task