Predicting Cognitive Control from Preschool to Late Adolescence And
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PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Research Article Predicting Cognitive Control From Preschool to Late Adolescence and Young Adulthood Inge-Marie Eigsti,1 Vivian Zayas,2 Walter Mischel,3 Yuichi Shoda,4 Ozlem Ayduk,5 Mamta B. Dadlani,6 Matthew C. Davidson,7 J. Lawrence Aber,8 and B.J. Casey7 1Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut; 2Department of Psychology, Cornell University; 3Department of Psychology, Columbia University; 4Department of Psychology, University of Washington; 5Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley; 6Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; 7Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology, Weill Medical College of Cornell University; and 8Steinhardt School of Education, New York University ABSTRACT—In this longitudinal study, the proportion of individual differences in cognitive control seem to be evident as time preschoolers directed their attention away from re- early as 18 months of age (Rothbart, Derryberry, & Posner, warding stimuli during a delay-of-gratification task was 1994), the degree to which these differences in early life predict positively associated with efficiency (greater speed without cognitive control later in life has not been assessed. The present reduced accuracy) at responding to targets in a go/no-go longitudinal investigation examined this ability with the delay- task more than 10 years later. The overall findings suggest of-gratification task in preschoolers and the go/no-go paradigm that preschoolers’ ability to effectively direct their atten- when they became adolescents and young adults. Both tasks tion away from tempting aspects of the rewards in a delay- require the individual to effectively control attentional and of-gratification task may be a developmental precursor for behavioral responses to salient information, a hallmark of cog- the ability to perform inhibitory tasks such as the go/no-go nitive control and cognitive development (Casey, Durston, & task years later. Because performance on the go/no-go task Fossella, 2001). has previously been characterized as involving activation Many developmental studies have shown that cognitive con- of fronto-striatal regions, the present findings also suggest trol becomes more efficient (i.e., faster and more accurate) with that performance in the delay-of-gratification task may development (Keating & Bobbitt, 1978), not reaching full ma- serve as an early marker of individual differences in the turity until after age 12 (Passler, Isaac, & Hynd, 1985). The functional integrity of this circuitry. increase in efficiency from early childhood to adolescence is marked by a decrease in an individual’s susceptibility to inter- ference from competing information (e.g., Casey, Tottenham, & Cognitive control is the foundation of the ability to guide and Fossella, 2002). To study cognitive control in children and control behavior and optimize outcomes (Braver & Cohen, 2001; adolescents, researchers have used a range of tasks, including Miller & Cohen, 2001). When individuals perform tasks in the Stroop-like (Tipper, Bourque, Anderson, & Brehaut, 1989), di- service of a desired goal, cognitive control enables them to rected-forgetting (Harnishfeger & Bjorkland, 1993), and go/no- suppress attention and responses to irrelevant information, even go tasks (Luria, 1961). In the go/no-go task, a well-studied when that information is highly salient (Allport, 1987). Although measure of cognitive control, participants are instructed to re- spond to target stimuli, but to refrain from responding to non- target stimuli. Children ages 7 to 12 show greater difficulty than Address correspondence to Inge-Marie Eigsti, Department of Psy- chology, University of Connecticut, 406 Babbidge Rd., Unit 1020, adults on this task (twice as many errors overall and slower re- Storrs, CT 06269, e-mail: [email protected]. action time; Durston, Thomas, Yang, et al., 2002). Moreover, 478 Copyright r 2006 Association for Psychological Science Volume 17—Number 6 I.-M. Eigsti et al. parametrically increasing the number of target (go) stimuli pre- existing research (e.g., Rothbart et al., 1994) suggests that ceding a nontarget (no-go) stimulus has been shown to increase prefrontal circuitry may account for individual differences in the the task difficulty. Specifically, as the number of preceding ability to effectively and flexibly deploy attention during this consecutive go trials increases, people show a greater proportion task (Mischel & Ayduk, 2004). Thus, circumstantial evidence of false alarms to no-go trials (Durston, Thomas, Worden, Yang, & indicates that performance in the delay-of-gratification and Casey, 2002) and longer reaction times to go trials (Liston et al., go/no-go tasks reflects similar biological and neural systems. 2006). This manipulation provides a particularly sensitive probe In the present study, we examined whether the proportion of of developmental changes in attentional control (Durston, Tho- time preschoolers spent directing attention toward tempting mas, Yang, et al., 2002; Liston et al., 2006). stimuli in the delay-of-gratification task would predict their Performance in the classic delay-of-gratification task has performance on a go/no-go task when the same individuals were been shown to reflect preschoolers’ ability to control their at- late adolescents and young adults. Previous longitudinal work tention in the face of temptation (Mischel, 1974; Mischel, (Carlson, Mandell, & Williams, 2004) has demonstrated that Shoda, & Rodriguez, 1989). In this paradigm, preschoolers try to individual differences in executive functioning, including at- postpone immediate gratification in order to attain a more valued tention deployment in delay tasks, are relatively stable between outcome later (e.g., two cookies instead of just one). Research the ages of 24 and 39 months. However, the extent to which using this paradigm has provided compelling evidence for individual differences in early life predict abilities in late meaningful individual differences in cognitive control (Ro- adolescence and young adulthood has not yet been examined. driguez, Mischel, & Shoda, 1989). Although some children are We hypothesized that compared with preschoolers who focused able to wait the entire 15-min period in order to obtain the more on the salient and tempting aspects of the delay situation (in- valued reward, other children are not. Extensive research has dividuals with high temptation focus), those who were able to shown that a key ingredient of success in the delay situation is focus their attention away from those features (individuals with the ability to allocate attention strategically during the waiting low temptation focus) would later be more able to focus on the period (Mischel et al., 1989). Specifically, those children who task demands of the go/no-go task (i.e., responding to targets but are able to direct their attention away from the reward-related not to distractors), as indexed by faster reactions to go trials and stimuli in the task (low temptation focus) are able to wait longer fewer false alarms to no-go trials. The number of consecutive go than those children who direct their attention toward the reward- trials preceding a no-go trial was used to increase the tendency related stimuli (high temptation focus). to respond and thus the need for cognitive control, as discussed The delay-of-gratification task has been widely studied, in in more detail in the Method section. Thus, we predicted that part, because 4-year-olds’ performance in this task is diagnostic individual differences in cognitive control would be most visible of consequential long-term outcomes, including adaptive social, in conditions in which cognitive demands were highest (i.e., cognitive, and emotional functioning in adulthood. For example, when multiple consecutive go trials preceded a no-go trial). 4-year-old children who are more successful at waiting in the delay-of-gratification situation have been found to be more at- METHOD tentive, to be better able to concentrate, and to exhibit greater self-control and frustration tolerance than their peers when they Participants are adolescents (Mischel, Shoda, & Peake, 1988; Shoda, Mis- Fifteen females and 19 males participated in a delay-of-grati- chel, & Peake, 1990). They also score higher on the SATand are fication assessment when they were approximately 4 years of age perceived as more interpersonally competent by parents and (mean age 5 4 years 10 months, SD 5 3 months; range 5 4.33– peers (Mischel et al., 1989). As adults, they are less likely to use 5.25 years). At follow-up, they were approximately 14 years drugs (Ayduk et al., 2000). older (mean age 5 18 years 2 months, SD 5 3 years 3 months; It is noteworthy that there are significant procedural differ- range 5 11.36–22.82 years old). The mean estimated IQ of the ences in the delay-of-gratification task and the go/no-go task. participants, based on subtests of the Wechsler Abbreviated Nevertheless, the two paradigms share a fundamental feature: In Scale of Intelligence (Wechsler, 1999), was 119 (SD 5 10, both tasks, performance requires controlling a prepotent re- range 5 105–138). Written consent (and assent when appli- sponse, whether it is producing a behavioral response in the go/ cable) was obtained prior to testing, and procedures followed all no-go task or attending to the temptations in the delay-of-grat- applicable guidelines for human research subjects. ification task. Performance on the two tasks may rely, in part, on similar neural circuitry. The go/no-go paradigm has been linked Procedure to the development of fronto-striatal and related circuitry (Booth et al., 2003; Casey, Trainor, Orendi, et al., 1997; Durston, Delay-of-Gratification Situation Thomas, Worden, et al., 2002; Vaidya et al., 1998). Although no At age 4, each participant was asked by a female experimenter to empirical study has directly examined the neural and biological indicate a preference for either a smaller reward (e.g., one basis of performance in the delay-of-gratification paradigm, cookie) or a larger reward (e.g., two cookies). Each child Volume 17—Number 6 479 Delay of Gratification and Cognitive Control selected the larger reward.