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May 7-9, 2009 - Saarland University, Saarbrücken
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„Lifespan Development of Executive Control“
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Workshop
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- Abstracts -
Theory of Mind and Executive Control in Preschoolers
Gisa Aschersleben & Anne Henning
Saarland University, Germany
Several studies have demonstrated a relation between preschoolers’ executive functioning
and their theory of mind, i.e., their ability to attribute mental states like desires and beliefs to
others. Most of these studies, however, limited the assessment of theory of mind
development to measuring children’s understanding of false belief. In line with Wellman and
Liu’s (2004) assumption of a developmental progression in theory of mind abilities, the aim of
the present study was therefore to explore the relation between executive functioning and a
wider range of theory of mind abilities. Three- to six-year-old children (N = 200) were given a
multitask battery measuring executive functioning and theory of mind as well as various
control variables (testing the influence of temperament, language and socioeconomic status,
for example). Executive functioning was examined using the Dimensional Change Card Sort
(DCCS; Zelazo, 2006). In addition, children were tested with the German version (Hofer &
Aschersleben, 2004) of the Theory-of-Mind Scale developed by Wellman and Liu (2004) that
covers a range of different developmental attainments (diverse desires, diverse beliefs,
knowledge access, real-apparent emotion) as well as a battery of two different false belief
tasks. First analyses indicate that responses to the Theory-of-Mind Scale items form a
consistent developmental progression and thus replicate the findings of various previous
studies. Also, the DCCS score correlated positively with both the Theory-of-Mind Scale score
as well as the false belief score. Importantly, these relations remained significant when
controlling for language abilities. Finally, results suggest an influence of temperament on
theory of mind in that more active children showed slightly reduced Theory-of-Mind Scale
scores. Findings will be discussed in the light of an assumed developmental progression in
theory of mind abilities and its relation to the development of executive functioning.
Cognitive flexibility in preschoolers: Evidence on the underlying processes
using explicit and implicit measures
Agnès Blaye & Nicolas Chevalier
Provence University, France
Recent evidence suggests that flexible behaviour involves setting appropriate task goals and
accordingly switching or maintaining relevant task sets (e.g., Chevalier & Blaye, in press;
Miyake et al., 2004). To further investigate these processes, visual information that children
take into account while switching tasks was investigated using eye movements. Four-, 5-,
and 6-year-old children and adults were tested on a version of the cued task-switching
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paradigm that required switching between shape and colour-matching rules. Colour and
shape dimensions were spatially dissociated on the stimuli and response options so that
fixations on the relevant and irrelevant dimensions could be distinguished. The results
revealed that 4-year-olds’ switching failures at least partially reflect poor processing of visual
cues, hence suggesting goal-setting difficulty. In the older age groups, fixations were
differentially distributed depending on whether children had to switch or maintain matching
rules. Fixation times mostly differed across trial types for the cues, and the relevant and
irrelevant dimensions of the stimuli, whereas the responses were not much fixated even by
the youngest children. Moreover, the fixation patterns were modulated by age. Implications
for goal setting and the switching process will be discussed.
Working Memory Training in Old Age: Behavioral and Brain Plasticity
Yvonne Brehmer, Helena Westerberg, & Lars Bäckman
Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
Working memory (WM), the ability to maintain and manipulate information during short
periods of time, is essential for many higher-order cognitive functions and is anatomically
related to a widespread fronto-parietal network. WM functioning declines in old age. These
age-related WM deficits underlie age-related decline in other cognitive domains (e.g.,
episodic memory, reasoning). Prior research demonstrates that WM can be improved by
intense training in children as well as in younger adults. The main aims of the current project
are to investigate (a) whether older adults benefit from intensive WM training; (b) if this
improvement generalizes to untrained tasks; and (c) how the related brain-activity patterns
change following training. Twenty-three older adults (M = 63.7) participated in a five-week
computerized training study. To test the effectiveness of the WM training program, half of the
sample received adaptive training (i.e., individually adjusted task difficulty to bring individuals
to their performance maximum), whereas the other half served as active controls (i.e., fixed
low-level practice). Psychometric offline testing was included before and after training as well
as three months after training to assess generalizability and maintenance of training effects.
Individuals’ brain activity was measured before and after training, using functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI), while performing a WM task under two task-difficulty levels.
Results indicate that (a) individuals improve their WM performance through training; (b)
training benefits can partially be generalized and maintained across a three-months time
interval; (c) adaptive training as well as low-level practice result in decreased brain activity in
task-relevant regions (frontal, parietal, and temporal); and (d) under the high task-difficulty
condition, adaptive training results in larger decreases in right frontal areas compared to the
active control group. To conclude, intensive WM training improves older adults’ functioning
and neural efficiency, and the advantage of adaptive training is most apparent under hightask difficulty conditions.
Towards markers for individual differences in age-related decline in cognitive
control: Integration of neuropsychological tests with combined eye-trackingfMRI
H. Harsay¹, H. van Rooijen¹, R. M. Visser¹, M. de Sousa Gueirreiro¹, L. Reneman², &
K.R. Ridderinkhof¹
Amsterdam Center for the Study of Adaptive Control in Brain and Behaviour (ACACia),
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; 2Department of Radiology, Academic
Medical Center (AMC), University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
More than a focus on age-related decline, several lines of research in the field of
neurocognitive aging are currently moving towards a focus on what is preserved. First
attempts are made to explore individual differences in cognitive decline in search for factors
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and neural mechanisms underlying good performance and performance improvement.
Saccadic eye movement tasks and, in particular the anti-saccade task has been used
extensively as a tool in aging research to study cognitive control; and age-related decline in
anti-saccadic performance has often been documented. As of yet, no study has addressed
the presence and the neural underpinnings of potential performance-optimizing factors in
anti-saccadic decline in old age. A promising way of investigating optimization is by
considering age-related changes in striatal connections for symptoms of oculomotor decline.
Here, we report performance improvement by preparational and motivational cues that
capitalize on the integrative function of the dorsal striatum that improves cross talk among
motivational- and oculomotor circuits by “gating” preparatory oculomotor structures to
enhance readiness for antisaccadic output. We report neuropsychological results that predict
individual differences in the behavioral and neural correlates of anti-saccadic decline and we
show networks underlying individual differences in antisaccadic improvement. Together,
these behavioral, neuropsychological and neuroimaging results add to our understanding of
the mechanisms underlying individual variability in age-related cognitive decline and in
sources for improvement.
The development of voluntary action
Bernhard Hommel, Stephan Verschoor, Michiel Spapé, Rena Eenshuistra, Maaike
Weidema, & Szilvia Biro
Leiden University Institute for Psychological Research & Leiden Institute for Brain and
Cognition, The Netherlands
Voluntary action is anticipatory and, hence, must depend on associations between actions
and their perceivable effects. I will provide an overview of recent behavioral,
electrophysiological, pupillometric, and imaging work from our lab on the acquisition of
action-effect associations in infants, children, and adults. It shows that action effects are
acquired from very early on and are still integrated automatically with the corresponding
actions in adults by binding action plans in SMA to effect codes in sensorimotor cortices via
hippocampus. However, actively using effect representations for intentional action control
seems to rely on the developing frontal cortex, which apparently plays a crucial role in
selecting contextually appropriate action-effect associations.
Executive function as social interaction
Charlie Lewis, Karen Shimmon, Ivonne Solis-Trapala, Kathryn Warburton, Amy
Harrison, Peter Diggle, & John Towse
Lancaster University, U.K.
While increasingly taken to refer to the anatomy and physiology of brain processes, the
cognitive skills identified under the banner of executive function were originally explored in
terms of how they are guided by, and guide, human social conduct (Vygotsky, 1978). I will
briefly trace the origins of research on executive function to show that the link with social
interaction has a long history, which we are apt to neglect. I will then attempt to test the claim
that young children’s executive skills are mediated by social interaction by describing three
lines of investigation in which we have recently conducted in part to demonstrate this. The
first two consider the dynamics of task performance. When conducting tasks in which they
have to follow two commands children show variability in using a first instruction and
switching and these skills. Their performance in each skill relates to other well-tested tasks of
set shifting or inhibition. Secondly, when carrying out a battery of typical executive tests there
is carry-over from one test to another, even when administered a week apart. These findings
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remind us that executive processes are dynamic and the third area of research suggests that
these are strongly influenced by social interactions: children’s performance on standard
executive tasks is influenced by simple manipulations of the experimenter-child conversation
before a test is administered. I suggest that the burgeoning research trend into executive
skills should pay more attention to the tradition exploring the role of social interaction in their
development.
The transferability of cognitive training: A lifespan perspective
Julia Karbach & Jutta Kray
Saarland University, Germany
Although numerous studies have shown that executive functions can be improved by
training, little is known about the extent to which these training-related benefits can be
transferred to other tasks in different age groups. I will present our recent work focusing on
age differences in the transfer of task-switching training across the lifespan. Results of a first
study show that training-related performance improvements can be transferred to structurally
similar new tasks (near transfer), especially in children and older adults. Moreover, we also
found far transfer of task-switching training to inhibitory control, working memory, and fluid
intelligence in children, younger adults, and older adults. Based on these findings, a second
study investigated a group of participants with marked deficits regarding inhibition and
working memory, namely children diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD). Preliminary data show reliable near transfer of task-switching training to a similar
switching task, as well as far transfer to inhibitory control and working memory, pointing to
the usefulness of cognitive interventions for clinical applications. Finally, our third study
focused on the question whether transfer of task-switching training in older adults can be
improved by certain training strategies, such as verbal self-instructions. Our findings suggest
that the transferability of verbal self-instruction strategies seems to be relatively specific and
strongly dependent on the amount of overlap between training and transfer situations.
Executive control and working memory training in young-old and old-old
adults: Differential effects across the Third and Fourth Age?
Matthias Kliegel
Technical University Dresden
Cognitive training interventions have consistently been shown to improve memory capacity in
young-old adults. However, the potential and limits of plasticity in executive control in old age
remain unclear; specifically, in the Fourth Age (80+). In the present project, a randomized
controlled training study was conducted on 40 young-old (60-80 years) and 40 old-old adults
(80+). Half of the sample was trained in executive control and working memory tasks for
three weeks (5 days + 3 days + 3 days) applying an adaptive training schedule. Pre- and
post-training assessments included near and far transfer variables as well as everyday
cognitive performance ratings. Results showed that the intervention program improved
executive control and working memory functions trained. Moreover, improvements
transferred to near and far transfer activities in but not outside the laboratory. Training and
transfer effects differed between age groups as young-old adults profited most. Data are
discussed in the context of current theories on cognitive plasticity.
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Examining age-related inhibitory deficits in task switching
Vera Lawo, Ina Wegener, Andrea M. Philipp, & Iring Koch
RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Using a cued task-switching paradigm, old and young adults switched unpredictably among
three tasks. Task inhibition was measured by assessing n-2 task repetition costs (i.e., the
performance difference between ABA vs. CBA sequences). These costs are assumed to be
due to the persisting after-effect of inhibiting the previous and thus most competing task. As
older adults are often assumed to have a deficit in inhibition processes, one should expect
them to show smaller n-2 task repetition costs. However, conflicting with an inhibitory-deficit
account, we observed larger n-2 repetition costs in old than in young adults, supporting an
earlier finding by Mayr (2001). Additionally, we found larger practice benefits in old adults,
but practice did not affect task inhibition. Together, the data suggest that age-related taskswitching deficits may be due to increased difficulties in activating new tasks when there are
competing tasks, which then calls for more inhibition of competing tasks.
Adult age-related differences in neural correlates of updating before and after
hundred days of cognitive training
Martin Lövdén, Florian Schmiedek, & Ulman Lindenberger
Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development,
Germany
We used functional MRI to investigate brain activation in 23 younger (age 20-30) and 16
older (age 65-80) participants performing a numerical working memory (updating) task in a
low load and a high load condition. Participants were a sub-sample of the COGITO study and
imaging was conducted at two occasions: before and after 100 days of cognitive practice on
three working memory, three episodic memory, and six perceptual speed tasks. Results
showed bilateral activations in typical brain regions related to working memory load:
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, premotor cortex, anterior
cingulate, superior parietal lobe, striatum, and cerebellum. Importantly, older adults displayed
a larger load effect in striatum than younger adults, as well as a load effect in the
hippocampus, which was absent for younger adults. We speculate that these results may
reflect differences in the demands that this working memory task has on selective updating
and binding in younger and older adulthood. These results were stable over time, suggesting
that, although performance dramatically improved due to cognitive practice, the task was
performed much in a similar way before and after practice on trials when the task
performance was successful.
Decision making, reasoning biases and executive functioning: A lifespan
perspective
Sylvain Moutier
Sorbonne University, France
In the past few years, our understanding of the underlying processes of reasoning and
decision-making has progressed markedly. Human choices are vulnerable to the manner in
which options are presented. This so-called ‘‘framing effect’’ represents a striking violation of
standard economic accounts of human rationality, although its underlying cognitive
mechanism is not understood. The objective is to highlight some of the most exciting
developments in this area, for example the importance of incorporating emotional and
executive processes within models of human choice. Do older adults make decisions any
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differently than younger adults? In a lifespan perspective, we present new data describing
how age-related changes in emotion and executive processes may affect decision making
about uncertain options in old age. Moreover, the cognitive psychology of reasoning has
shown that most school-age children, but also adults, consistently make deduction errors in
certain tasks. For example, the so-called “belief-bias” is a strong tendency to endorse
syllogisms’ conclusion believed to be true – or to reject syllogisms’ unbelievable conclusion –
regardless of their logical validity. In order to test the role of cognitive inhibition in syllogisms
with belief-bias effects, we used a negative priming paradigm with 64 children (8-10 years
old). Our results support the idea that during cognitive development, inhibitory control is
required for success on syllogisms where belief and logic interfere. These data show that
errors in deductive logic are not necessarily due to a lack of logic but can stem from an
executive failure to inhibit biases. Then, we used functional MRI in order to examine the
impact of sex and psychometric verbal and spatial abilities on adult cerebral activation
patterns during deductive reasoning. Our data demonstrate that women and men engaged a
common reasoning network when our brain computes syllogisms, but also that this reasoning
network is modulated by sex. Men engaged visuospatial brain regions, while women
implicated left-hemispheric frontal and temporal brain regions linked to syntactic processing.
As such, we hope that our results provide new fuel for the current debates in developmental
psychology of reasoning and decision making.
Executive functions and aging: Unity or diversity?
Valérie Pennequin
University of Tours, France
A recent model (Miyake et al., 2000) described the organization of three often postulated
executive functions – inhibition, updating, and shifting – in a sample of young adults. The aim
of this work was to integrate these recent data into an age-related field, and to examine the
separability of inhibition and interference (Dempster, 1993 ; Harnishfeger, 1995) or inhibition
and activation (Zacks and Hasher, 1997 ; Juhel et al., 2000). A first study deals with the
organisation of the five executive functions mentioned. The experimental protocol concerned
a sample of 95 young adults age 18 to 41. The second study deals with the evolution of
these executive functions’ architecture with aging. The participants were 107 healthy older
adults age 60 to 94. We conducted descriptive analysis, relative to the correlational study,
exploratory analysis, relative to the principal factor analysis, and a latent variable approach
(confirmatory factor analysis), that allows to test models a priori on the basis of theoretical
considerations. Results can be resumed in three propositions: (1) Confirmatory analysis in
the sample of young adults did not provide results confirming those of Miyake et al. (2000).
(2) Confirmatory analysis in the sample of older adults showed a five-factor model,
confirming the model proposed by Miyake et al. (2000) and the dissociations evoked in the
literature (inhibition/activation/interference). (3) Evolution of these functions’ organization with
aging is compatible with the age de-differentiation hypothesis. The discussion focuses on two
possible explanations of the non overlapping of the Miyake et al.’s model (2000) in the
sample of young adults: the first concerned the methodological differences between these
researches and the second, more epistemological, question the robustness of the models
obtained with confirmatory analysis.
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Age and individual differences in practice effects on two-choice reaction time
tasks:
Cognitive and neuronal correlates of diffusion model parameters
Florian Schmiedek, Martin Lövdén, Simone Kühn, Roger Ratcliff, & Ulman
Lindenberger
Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development,
Germany
Adult age differences in simple two-choice decision-making were investigated with the
diffusion model (Ratcliff, 1978). In the COGITO study, 101 younger adults (20-31 years) and
103 older adults (65-80 years) participated on average in 100 practice sessions with three
perceptual choice tasks involving masked digits, letters, and asymmetrical figural
configurations. Pre- and posttest assessments included a sufficient number of trials (1000
per task at each occasion) to conduct diffusion model parameter estimation separately for
each individual and all three tasks. Results show that drift rates (i.e., the diffusion model
parameter capturing the speed of evidence accumulation in the decision process): (a) were
lower in older adults than in younger adults; (b) increased with practice in both age groups;
and (c) were correlated across tasks, forming a common factor of evidence accumulation.
This drift-rate factor, as well as latent factors for other diffusion model parameters are linked
to a broad battery of cognitive ability measures, including reasoning, working memory,
episodic memory, and perceptual speed. Furthermore, brain activation patterns associated
with individual differences and practice effects are investigated with fMRI for subgroups of
younger and older participants.
Dissociable Age Effects in the Access Control of Inhibition
Cora Titz & Marcus Hasselhorn
DIPF, Center for Education and Development, Germany
Prefrontal areas, which are thought to support executive functions, such as inhibition, are
among the first brain regions that suffer from age-related losses. A weakened access control
of inhibition is supposed to weaken older adults' resistance to distraction (Hasher, Zacks &
May, 1999). Distractibility has experimentally been measured by comparing response times
in control-conditions (target and distractor), with response times in single-target-conditions
(target only). Distractor interference effects are calculated by subtracting mean reaction
times in single-target-trials from mean reaction times in control-trials. The difference reveals
the additional time necessary to resolve interference from the distracting object in controltrials. Control-trials and single-target-trials differ, however, in both perceptual and conceptual
features. Age effects in distractibility could therefore stem from two sources.
The first is visual distraction; the second is response competition among concepts. To test
the locus of the impairment, 40 younger adults (aged 22-34) and 40 older adults (aged 5876) performed a study containing a) control-trials in which targets were superimposed with
distracting objects, b) single-target-trials, and, c) single-target-trials in which targets were
superimposed with nonsense line-drawings. The difference between control-trials and singletarget-trials was greater for older than for younger adults. No significant age effect emerged,
when control-trials are compared to single-target-trials superimposed with nonsense
distractors. The results suggest that the impairment in older adults' access control is best
described by problems in suppressing visual distraction.
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Task switching performance in young and older employees: a cross-sectional
study
Nele Wild-Wall, Patrick Gajewski, & Michael Falkenstein
Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, University of
Dortmund
In the present study we investigated age-related differences in task switchig performance
and whether the expected differences are dependent on work place demands. Young and
older employees of a car factory were recruited from two different work places, respectively,
which differed in cognitive requirements, i.e. flexibility and monotony. Education was
comparable between the two older groups. All participants performed digit categorization
tasks by judging whether the digit is greater vs. smaller than five, even or odd, or of small or
large font. The three tasks were performed in single as well as in mixed blocks. In the mixed
blocks participants had to switch between tasks according to three conditions: switching was
either indicated by the serial position in a run (memory-based), by an explicit cue (cuebased), or both. Alongside, the electroencephalogram was recorded and event-related
potentials (ERPs) were computed according to defined events. A general age-related slowing
of response speed was present in all conditions. Local switch costs were present in response
times and error rates. Importantly, local switch costs did not differ between age-groups nor
between work place demands, indicating that the ability to switch among tasks remained
unchanged across age and job demands. However, older employees with less flexible work
demands showed significant higher mixing costs than their older counterparts with more
flexible work demands under memory based condition but not under cue-based condition.
The difference between both groups was dramatically increased in error rates: whereas older
participants with flexible job requirements committed less errors than young participants, the
error rate of older employees with less flexible work was extraordinary increased in memory
based blocks. Moreover, in this group, the error negativity (Ne) of the ERP was especially
reduced in amplitude, indicating impaired processing of response errors in order to
dynamically adjust overt performance. In addition, their P300 potential upon imperative
stimuli was smaller, suggesting less efficient stimulus-response integration. In sum, older
participants showed mainly difficulties when multiple task sets had to be maintained in
working memory. In addition our data suggest that long lasting work place demands may
have an impact on task performance and its underlying brain functions.
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