The Costs and Benefits of Transitioning from Reactive to Proactive Control in Young Children
Year: 2014
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Cognitive control refers to the mental processes (often termed 'executive functions', or EFs) that allow us to regulate our emotions, actions, and thoughts in order to carry out goals and plans.In early childhood, children transition from a reactive form of cognitive control, characterized by responding 'in the moment', to a proactive form of control, characterized by maintaining information in preparation for future responses.Previous research has established that this transition may confer costs as well as benefits.The present study investigates how cognitive control relates to response inhibition, delay of gratification, memory retrieval, and subclinical symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) in 5 and 6 year old children who have recently undergone (or are undergoing) the reactive--to-proactive transition.Consistent with our hypotheses, children with better proactive control waited longer on a delay of gratification task, and scored lower on a measure assessing ADHD traits, than reactive children.We did not find evidence of hypothesized links between proactive control and memory retrieval, or proactive control and response inhibition.
Author: Kathleen Peoples
Institution: University of Colorado Boulder
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2401489947