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Psychology Notes Developmental Psychology (2nd year) Notes

Executive Function Notes

Updated Executive Function Notes

Developmental Psychology (2nd year) Notes

Developmental Psychology (2nd year)

Approximately 40 pages

Topics include: memory, executive function, adolescence, and antisocial behaviour. Relevant evidence for each topic is outlined, including methodology and findings

These notes are informative, to the point, and easy to follow. They are drawn from a wide range of sources utilising additional course reading and independent reading....

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The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our Developmental Psychology (2nd year) Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:

CARLSON ET AL., 2013

Exec function (EF) = an interrelated set of ‘high level’ cognitive skills, including planning, reasoning, WM, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility

Prefrontal cortex is crucial for exec function (Robbins, 1996)

Damage to PFC problems with planning, inhibition, cognitive control

Important improvements between 3-4 years

EF is shown when people engage in conscious, goal-directed thought and action under new situations, where previously established routines for responding do not exist

EF emerges early, develops rapidly during preschool years, and continues to develop into the 3rd decade

EF = unitary construct that becomes increasingly differentiated with development and experience

Influenced by bottom-up processes eg stress, motivation, arousal

Measurement of EF in early childhood has improved and new psychometric approaches are promising

EF can be trained with corresponding changes to brain structure and function

Development of PFC in Childhood

Within PFC:

Lateral PFC Cognitive functions including monitoring visual input about spatial locations and objects, mediation of attention, and WM
Orbitofrontal cortex (OFC)

Brain regions involved in emotion processing, eg amygdala, connect with OFC

OFC received processed sensory and associative memory info

Involved with motivation and reward
Anterior cingulate within the Medial frontal cortex ACC connects OFC and parts of the limbic system involved in learning

Growth of PFC:

  1. Myelination within PFC increases increased efficiency, processing speed, and info integration

  2. Gray matter in PFC slowly increased and then decreases in late childhood and adulthood U-shape may reflect the overproduction and pruning of synapses which allows the brain to be shaped by experience

Shift from more diffuse to more focal activation of EF

more activation in areas related to EF in adults

less activation in areas unrelated to EF

= focalisation as a function of age and EF suggests that the functional development of PFC may be assoc with more specialised and efficient processing

Moriguchi et al., 2009:

Direct evidence that development changes in PFC function accompany changes in exec function

Card sorting task while brain activity recorded via NIRS

Nearly all 5y/o but only 75% 3y/o successfully switched rules

Changes in blood oxy in PF areas between control phase and experimental phase

Those who passed had more blood oxy than those who failed

Hot and Cold EF

Neural systems vary as a function of motivational significance

Top-down influences that operate in… Area
Hot EF Motivationally and emotionally sig situations

OFC

Paralimbic structures
Cool EF More affectively neutral contexts Lateral PFC

Optimal performance on hot EF tasks lag behind cool EF in development due to the additional demands of managing emotional arousal

Cohen et al., 2011: tested 8 and 14y/o

Adult like levels of performance reached on hot EF measures at an older age than for cool EF measures

More individual differences in hot EF matter of motivation than capacity for cognitive control

Delay of Gratification Task:

Age-related declines in impulsive responding

Ind diff correlated with performance on cool EF measures

Remain fairly stable over time

Age-related changes in EF

Infancy through middle childhood = increases in:

  • WM

  • Inhib control

  • Cognitive flexibility

  • Planning

= allow for greater cognitive control with increasing automaticity and efficiency

Young children show impulsive, stimulus-bound behaviour opposite of goal-directed behaviour

INFANCY AND TODDLERHOOD

A-not-B error = earliest emerging behaviour that requires EF

  • By 7-8 months infants can retrieve an object when hidden and obscured for 2-3 seconds

  • By 9-12 months infants can remember the location for longer delays

Piaget, 1952: Means-end clothing-pulling task: PLANNING

Means-end = recognising that a particular action results in a particular event

Infant presented with an object of interest out of reach

Infant must pull cloth (means) to reach the object (goal)

ability emerges at 8m/o

EF develops at 3y/o, but ground-work for EF develops earlier

PRESCHOOL PERIOD

From age 2-5, children make gains in EF

Plan solutions

Carlson et al., 2004:

3y/o children performing the Truck Loading task:

Showed planning by remembering to load all items into the truck

Did not show a means-end strategy in which they had to load items in reverse order for the stops along the route
Inhibit behaviours

Gerstadt, 1994: day and night task: Stroop task variation 70% correct at 3.5 years, 90% correct 7 years

Grass/Snow task: children asked to point to white card when examiner says grass

performance improved sig from 3-5y/o
WM Diamond & Doar, 1989: A not B task: 7-12 months: increase in retention interval for spatial location – proposed to relate to PFC development
Cognitive flexibility

Dimensional Change Card Sort task Zelazo, 2006:

Sort the same cards in 2 different ways eg first by shape, then by colour (similar to Wisconsin card sorting test for adults)

Requires inhib control to prevent responding based on the irrelevant dimension

Require WM to maintain reps of the relevant task rules

4y/o can switch rules

3y/o continue using the first set of rules after told to switch correctly respond to questions about the current rules but still perseverate on the basis of the previous rules = knowledge-action dissociation

= children develop the ability to represent and use rules during the preschool period

= ability to hold rules in mind for longer period and switch more flexibly develops between ages 3-6

SCHOOL-AGE YEARS

Advances still occur increases in:

  • Attention control

  • Efficiency

  • Flexibility

  • Organisation of complex problems

Humphrey, 1982: by middle childhood, children can selectively focus their attention in the face of complex distractors

Anderson et al., 1996, 2000:

Examined monitoring and regulation of action in a planning task Tower of London

accuracy and efficiency improved between 7-13...

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