Contributions of Working Memory and Inhibition to Cognitive Flexibility in Nigerian Adolescents

Nweze, Tochukwu; Nwani, Wisdom

doi:10.1080/87565641.2020.1765169

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 44 publications

(57 reference statements)

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“…Scores were similar across sites and instruments presented adequate psychometric properties. Similar results were found using culturally adapted cognitive tasks with a school-age sample in Zambia, Cameroon, South Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo [127][128][129][130] and a recent study found that associations between different aspects of cognitive control in Nigerian adolescents (12-21 years) resembled those predicted by existing models of executive functions derived from Western studies [150].…”

Section: Existing Researchsupporting

confidence: 81%

Adolescent Health Series: Adolescent neurocognitive development in Western and Sub‐Saharan African contexts

Pozuelo

Kilford

2021

Tropical Med Int Health

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The transitional period of adolescence has long been associated with physical, social and behavioural change. During this time, adolescents start to develop their own selfidentity, make important life decisions and acquire the necessary skills to successfully transition to adulthood. More recently, advances in brain imaging technology have enabled increased understanding of structural and functional changes in the human brain during this developmental period, and how they relate to social, emotional, motivational and cognitive development. The ability to integrate these developing cognitive processes in increasingly complex social contexts is a key aspect of mature decisionmaking, which has implications for adolescent health, educational, economic and social outcomes. Insights from the field of developmental cognitive neuroscience could increase our understanding of this influential stage of life and thus inform potential interventions to promote adolescent health, a critical goal for global health research. Many social changes occur during adolescence and the social environment shapes both brain and cognitive development and the decisions adolescents make. Thus, it is important to study adolescent neurocognitive development in socio-cultural context. Yet, despite evidence from Western studies that socio-cultural and economic factors impact on adolescent neurocognitive development, existing studies of adolescent neurocognitive development in sub-Saharan Africa are relatively scarce. We summarise research findings from Western and sub-Saharan African contexts and highlight areas where research is lacking. Longitudinal studies from more diverse global samples will be needed to build a comprehensive model of adolescent development, that characterises both commonalities in developmental trajectories, as well as the way these can meaningfully differ between both individuals and contexts.

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Section: Existing Researchsupporting

confidence: 81%

Adolescent Health Series: Adolescent neurocognitive development in Western and Sub‐Saharan African contexts

Pozuelo

Kilford

2021

Tropical Med Int Health

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“…The present findings showed that participants with higher set-shifting skills are less likely to be prone to the rule-matching bias, which means that they have a higher ability to update relevant information in working memory. The set-shifting, a multifaceted skill responsible for keeping task sets present in working memory [ 41 ], provides instant access to all related information and makes it possible to devote more attention to comparing them with the information presented in the conditional statement [ 14 ]. The results are broadly in line with the findings; using fMRI showed that when responding to the not-q question modes, more stable and extended processing is required than in other modes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, attention skills allow the conscious selection of information [ 12 ], and working memory enables information to be retrieved, stored, and manipulated during the reasoning process [ 13 ]. Furthermore, creating a connection between attention and working memory requires cognitive flexibility [ 14 ], which refers to the ability to update behaviors in the face of a changing environment [ 15 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Set-shifting and inhibition interplay affect the rule-matching bias occurrence during conditional reasoning task

2022

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The rule-matching bias is a common error during conditional reasoning tasks, which refers to a tendency to match responses with the lexical context in the conditional rule and leads to incorrect responses. Conditional reasoning is one of the higher-level cognitive abilities affected by many cognitive skills. We aimed to determine whether inhibition and set-shifting skills with rule-matching bias occurrence could be related and, if so, to what quantitative, at a statistically significant level. A total of 30 healthy university students aged 18 to 30 participated in this study. We used the Wason's Selection Task (WST) to measure conditional reasoning and investigated their inhibition and set-shifting skills with the Stroop and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, respectively. Results showed a significant positive correlation between the number of correct responses to the Stroop test and the Wason Selection Card Test (p=0.614). There was a positive correlation between the number of correct responses to the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and the Wason Selection Card Test (p=0.423). Participants with higher inhibition and set-shifting abilities showed better performance in the conditional reasoning test and lower rule-matching bias errors.

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“…Their meta-analysis gathered more than 2,000 children aged from 3 to 6, and the studies included typically developing children and children at developmental risk. The authors report results irrespective of the executive function targeted by the intervention, but they are nonetheless worthwhile for this article, because working memory is closely correlated to other executive functions (Diamond, 2013;McCabe et al, 2010;Nweze & Nwani, 2020). First, they found significant overall effect sizes ranging from g = 0.34 to g = 0.05, with significant heterogeneity among the studies.…”

Section: What Do Studies On Cognitive Training Reveal?mentioning

confidence: 93%

Effects of Cognitive Training upon Working Memory in Individuals with ADHD: An Overview of the Literature

Superbia-Guimarães¹,

Mariz-Elsig²,

Camos³

2022

JEDP

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Commercial cognitive training programs have been proposed as a non-pharmacological treatment of ADHD-related outcomes, such as learning difficulties and academic achievement. Most of these programs focus on working memory, an essential cognitive ability sustaining nearly every conscious mental activity. In this article, we present and summarize the main studies assessing the effectiveness of such training programs on working memory. The reported studies have failed to show a positive far-transfer and long-term effect of cognitive training both in typically developing individuals and children with ADHD. In the end, we present emerging alternative approaches to the use of cognitive training to improve working memory functioning in children with ADHD.

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Contributions of Working Memory and Inhibition to Cognitive Flexibility in Nigerian Adolescents

Cited by 9 publications

References 44 publications

Adolescent Health Series: Adolescent neurocognitive development in Western and Sub‐Saharan African contexts

Adolescent Health Series: Adolescent neurocognitive development in Western and Sub‐Saharan African contexts

Set-shifting and inhibition interplay affect the rule-matching bias occurrence during conditional reasoning task

Effects of Cognitive Training upon Working Memory in Individuals with ADHD: An Overview of the Literature

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