RESUMEN
We examined how 5- to 8-year-olds (N = 51; Mage = 83 months; 27 female, 24 male; 69% White, 12% Black/African American, 8% Asian/Asian American, 6% Hispanic, 6% not reported) and adults (N = 18; Mage = 20.13 years; 11 female, 7 male) accepted or rejected different distributions of resources between themselves and others. We used a reach-tracking method to track finger movement in 3D space over time. This allowed us to dissociate two inhibitory processes. One involved pausing motor responses to detect conflict between observed information and how participants thought resources should be divided; the other involved resolving the conflict between the response and the alternative. Reasoning about disadvantageous inequities involved more of the first system, and this was stable across development. Reasoning about advantageous inequities involved more of the second system and showed more of a developmental progression. Generally, reach tracking offers an on-line measure of inhibitory control for the study of cognition.
Asunto(s)
Juicio , Conducta Social , Adulto , Niño , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Adulto Joven , Cognición , Solución de ProblemasRESUMEN
Since its introduction nearly a half century ago, the Eriksen flanker task has prompted multiple theoretical and methodological advancements in the study of attention and control. Early research with the task inspired the continuous flow model of information processing, which in turn prompted researchers to investigate the dynamics of response competition using continuous behavioral measures. In recent years, the use of such measures in psychological research has increased dramatically as hand-tracking techniques have become more widely accessible. The current article highlights commonly overlooked links between Eriksen and colleagues' pioneering research investigating the continuous flow model and recent hand-tracking research investigating the dynamics of attention and control. After providing an overview of two hand-tracking techniques frequently used in psychological research, we review a series of recent studies that have used these techniques to investigate how the processes underlying attention and control (a) unfold over the course of a response (within-trial dynamics), (b) are impacted by recent experience (cross-trial dynamics), and (c) contribute to age-related changes observed across the life span (developmental dynamics). In addition to highlighting the central role that the flanker task has played in advancing psychological research and theory, this review underscores the advantages of collecting continuous behavioral measures, both in Eriksen's seminal work and in contemporary hand-tracking studies.
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Atención , Movimiento , Cognición , Mano , HumanosRESUMEN
The Gratton effect refers to the observation that performance on congruency tasks is often enhanced when the congruency of the current trial matches that of the previous trial. This effect has been at the center of recent debates in the literature on cognitive control as researchers have sought to identify the cognitive and neural underpinnings of the effect. Here, we use a technique known as reach tracking to demonstrate that the Gratton effect originally observed in the flanker task is not a singular effect but the result of two separate trial sequence effects that impact dissociable processes underlying cognitive control. Further, our results indicate that these dissociable processes follow divergent developmental trajectories across childhood, pre-adolescence, and adulthood. Taken together, these findings suggest that manual dynamics can be used to disentangle how key processes underlying cognitive control contribute to the response time effects observed across a wide range of cognitive tasks and age groups.
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Cognición , Conflicto Psicológico , Función Ejecutiva , Desempeño Psicomotor , Adolescente , Adulto , Factores de Edad , Niño , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Pruebas Neuropsicológicas , Tiempo de Reacción , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
Recent studies have suggested that dissociable processes featuring distinct types of inhibition support cognitive control in tasks requiring participants to override a prepotent response with a control-demanding alternative response. An open question concerns how these processes support cognitive flexibility in rule-switching tasks. We used a technique known as reach tracking to investigate how 5- to 8-year-olds (Experiment 1) and adults (Experiment 2) select, maintain, and switch between incompatible rule sets in a computerized version of the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS). Our results indicate that rule switching differentially impacts two key processes underlying cognitive control in children and adults. Adult performance also revealed a strong response bias not observed in children, which complicated a direct comparison of switching between the age groups and reopens questions concerning the relation between child and adult performance on the task. We discuss these findings in the context of a contemporary model of cognitive control.
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Envejecimiento/psicología , Desarrollo Infantil/fisiología , Cognición/fisiología , Función Ejecutiva/fisiología , Desempeño Psicomotor/fisiología , Adolescente , Factores de Edad , Atención/fisiología , Niño , Preescolar , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Pruebas Neuropsicológicas , Tiempo de Reacción/fisiología , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
The current study uses reach tracking to investigate how cognitive control is implemented during online performance of the Stroop task (Experiment 1) and the Eriksen flanker task (Experiment 2). We demonstrate that two of the measures afforded by reach tracking, initiation time and reach curvature, capture distinct patterns of effects that have been linked to dissociable processes underlying cognitive control in electrophysiology and functional neuroimaging research. Our results suggest that initiation time reflects a response threshold adjustment process involving the inhibition of motor output, while reach curvature reflects the degree of co-activation between response alternatives registered by a monitoring process over the course of a trial. In addition to shedding new light on fundamental questions concerning how these processes contribute to the cognitive control of behavior, these results present a framework for future research to investigate how these processes function across different tasks, develop across the lifespan, and differ among individuals.