Assessing cognitive inhibition in emotional and neutral contexts in children

Abstract

Different studies indicate that emotions can interfere with the efficacy of inhibitory control. However, understanding this impact requires considering that inhibition is not a unitary construct. Cognitive inhibition is the process responsible for attenuating and resisting the interference of thoughts, representations, and memories that are irrelevant to the task at hand. Due to the relevance of emotional stimuli for survival, different studies have indicated that the performance of cognitive inhibition can vary depending on the context, that is, whether in neutral or emotionally salient contexts. During the interval between 8 and 12 years old, the importance of this skill is rooted in the need for controlling reactions and stimuli that could be disruptive for learning. In this study, 395 children aged 8–12 years performed a 1-back visual task with emotional and neutral stimuli in order to assess cognitive inhibition in contexts with high and low emotional salience. The results support the validity of the task for the evaluation of cognitive inhibition. However, no significant differences were found, depending on the context, as expected. It is emphasised that these results constitute an approach to the problem of emotional content interference in children that considers the multidimensional approach of inhibition.

Global Cognitive Functioning versus Controlled Functioning throughout the Stages of Development

“…Although different studies have reported age-related changes [17,41], the changes found in this study present a different pattern than expected, since, as a whole, adolescents displayed better performance than adults (corollary development). In summary, the data provided here confirms the prediction presented in the corollary (corollary contrast), since, regardless of age, when the trials included irrelevant visual features (stimulus location) as in the case of incongruent stimuli, there was a decrease in performance, which can be interpreted as the result of inhibiting the irrelevant visual properties, thus implying a more discriminated and controlled functioning compared to the conditions in which there is no conflict between location (irrelevant property) and stimulus identity (congruent trials).…”

Climate change, a critical new role for educational and developmental psychologists

“…The contributions that have already been made by educational and developmental psychology have been wide-ranging and important, but there is further work to be done for educational and developmental psychologists in this space. While there is currently incredible work being produced in the field of educational and developmental psychology, I invite future research to respond to the unprecedented challenges before us (Alloway & Carpenter, 2020;Furlonger et al, 2020;Gindidis et al, 2020;Satici, 2020;Slaten et al, 2020;Spadafora et al, 2020;Zamora et al, 2020;Miller & Berger 2020;Deadman 2020;Frydenberg 2020a;Wilkerson 2020;Frydenberg 2020b). While educational and developmental psychologists are uniquely positioned to help children and young people to cope with stressors and challenges, there is a role for educational and developmental psychologists as a profession to do much more.…”

Bidirectional relationships between emotion understanding and executive functions in young children: A latent change score modeling study

“…Furthermore, research has indicated that children with greater inhibitory control are more inclined to achieve higher scores in emotion understanding (Rhoades et al, 2009;Zamora et al, 2020). These previous studies have linked the development of emotion understanding to the core cognitive process of executive functions.…”