The neurocognitive correlates of academic diligence in adolescent girls

Abstract

Academic diligence is the ability to regulate behavior in the service of goals, and a predictor of educational attainment. Here we combined behavioral, structural MRI, functional MRI and connectivity data to investigate the neurocognitive correlates of diligence. We assessed whether individual differences in diligence are related to the interplay between frontal control and striatal reward systems, as predicted by the dual-systems hypothesis of adolescent development. We obtained behavioral measures of diligence from 40 adolescent girls (aged 14-15 years) using the Academic Diligence Task. We collected structural imaging data for each participant, as well as functional imaging data during an emotional go-no-go self-control task. As predicted by the dual-systems hypothesis, we found that inferior frontal activation and gyrification correlated with academic diligence. However, neither striatal activation nor structure, nor fronto-striatal connectivity, showed clear associations with diligence. Instead, we found prominent activation of temporal areas during the go-no-go task. This suggests that academic diligence is associated with an extended network of brain regions.

The effect of social preference on academic diligence in adolescence

“…Future studies of this nature should investigate the use of a social versus non-social distraction task, such as engaging in a virtual game with other players (social) versus a single player game (non-social). Nevertheless, previous work using the original ADT paradigm in a sample of 40 adolescent girls aged 14–15 years found the average percentage time spent on the maths was 84% [22], comparable to the percentages observed in this study.…”

“…The arithmetic questions were kept simple so that maths ability would not confound diligence, and they were designed to be boring in order to represent the temptation to stop a purportedly beneficial but monotonous task in favour of a more interesting distractor task. Using basic arithmetic problems reduced the likelihood that individuals who would ordinarily enjoy completing maths problems would find the task engaging [22]. This increases the likelihood that any variation in the time spent on the maths is due to diligence.…”

“…(3) The time spent looking at the photographs in each condition would positively correlate with the picture enjoyment ratings, for both age groups. [21]. Participants were excluded from participating if they had any diagnosed developmental disorder, including dyslexia, dyscalculia or autism spectrum conditions.…”

Protocol for an app-based affective control training for adolescents: proof-of-principle double-blind randomized controlled trial

“…Parental education will be included as a proxy measure for socioeconomic status (SES). Parental education has been shown to be a robust indicator of SES 58 and has been previously used by our group in similar samples (e.g., 59).…”

Educational fMRI: From the Lab to the Classroom

“…Variability in brain function may result from complex genetic-by-environment interactions, and thus, may contain signatures of individual differences in abilities. For instance, previous fMRI studies have shown that variability in brain activations can be associated with individual differences in many cognitive and behavioral dimensions such as short-term memory capacity, motivational state, learning aptitude, attention shifting efficiency, cognitive flexibility, academic diligence, decision making, inhibitory efficiency during executive functions, and other higher cognitive abilities (Todd and Marois, 2005; Wager et al, 2005; Chuah et al, 2006; Locke and Braver, 2008; Barnes et al, 2014; Armbruster-Genç et al, 2016; Asaridou et al, 2016; Hilger et al, 2017; Fuhrmann et al, 2019). To maximize the usefulness of fMRI for educators, inter-individual variability in brain function should be treated as data rather than noise (Kosslyn et al, 2002; Thompson-Schill et al, 2005; Seghier and Price, 2018).…”