Attention and the Early Development of Cognitive Control
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List of Papers This thesis is based on the following papers, which are referred to in the text by their Roman numerals. I Forssman, L., Johansson, M., & Bohlin, G. (2012). Individual Differences in 10-Month-Olds Search Behavior in the A-not-B Task. Manuscript in preparation. II Watanabe, H., Forssman, L., Green, D., Bohlin, G., & von Hofsten, C. (2012). Attention Demands Influence 10- and 12- Month-Old Infants’ Perseverative Behavior. Developmental Psychology, 48, 46-55 III Forssman, L., Bohlin, G., & von Hofsten, C. (2012). The Role of Attentional Control in the A-not-B task: Comparing Anticipatory Gaze in 18-Month-Olds and Adults. Manuscript in preparation. Reprints were made with permission from the publishers. Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................... 9 Cognitive control ...................................................................................... 10 Attention ................................................................................................... 11 Development of visual attention in infancy and toddlerhood .............. 13 Integration of the visual systems and the reaching systems ................ 15 The early development of cognitive control: The A-not-B task .............. 16 Theories of memory and inhibition ...................................................... 17 Computational theories ........................................................................ 19 Theories of limited attentional resources ............................................. 20 A note on studying visual attention and cognitive abilities in early development .............................................................................................. 21 The aims of this thesis ................................................................................... 24 Method .......................................................................................................... 25 Participants ............................................................................................... 25 Stimuli and Apparatus .............................................................................. 25 Study I .................................................................................................. 25 Study II & III ....................................................................................... 26 Procedure .................................................................................................. 29 Study I .................................................................................................. 29 Studies II & III ..................................................................................... 30 Data Analysis ............................................................................................ 30 Study I ........................................................................................................... 32 Design ....................................................................................................... 33 Results ...................................................................................................... 34 Discussion ................................................................................................. 36 Study II .......................................................................................................... 38 Design ....................................................................................................... 39 Results ...................................................................................................... 40 Discussion ................................................................................................. 44 Study III ........................................................................................................ 46 Design ....................................................................................................... 47 Results ...................................................................................................... 47 Discussion ................................................................................................. 49 General Discussion ........................................................................................ 51 Description of rationales and main findings ............................................. 51 The development of attentional control .................................................... 52 Why do children perseverate? Some explanations ................................... 54 Developmental perspectives on cognitive control .................................... 55 New perspectives on the perseverative error ............................................ 56 A broader perspective and future directions ............................................. 57 Concluding remarks .................................................................................. 58 Acknowledgements ....................................................................................... 59 References ..................................................................................................... 60 Abbreviations ADHD Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder AOI Areas of interest DFT Dynamical Field Theory EEG Electroencephalogram HCSM Hierarchical Competing Systems Model PDP Parallel Distributed Processing PFC Prefrontal Cortex Introduction Throughout infancy and toddlerhood there is a dramatic development of cognitive abilities characterized by the new emergence of cognitive control. Cognitive control processes are brought into play in situations that require cognitive flexibility, when an automatic response is insufficient for acquiring an attained goal. These control processes involve being able to flexibly shift response set or focus of attention, actively hold information in mind, and the inhibition of distractions or prepotent responses in the face of new task demands. The early improvements in cognitive control allow the child to make future-oriented predictions and to increasingly act in the world in a goal-directed manner. These abilities have been suggested to emerge in their rudimentary form during the first year of life and continue to develop throughout childhood and well into adolescence (for reviews see Diamond, 2002; Jurado & Roselli, 2007; Zelazo, Carlson & Kesek, 2008). The development of cognitive control is presumably closely tied to the maturation of the attention systems (e.g., Posner, Rothbart, Sheese & Voelker, 2011; Rueda, Posner, Rothbart & Davis-Stober, 2004; Rothbart & Posner, 2001; see Garon, Bryson & Smith, 2008 for a review). Moreover, attentional control processes have been proposed to be the unifying construction underlying cognitive control in both children (Garon, et al., 2008; Lehto, Juujärvi, Kooistra & Pulkkinen, 2003) and adults (MaCabe, Roediger, McDaniel, Balota & Hambrick, 2010; Miyake et al., 2000). Thus, an exploration of attentional control in the first years of life appears to be a promising venue for a better understanding of early changes in cognitive control. Further, cognitive processes involved in goal-directed actions tend to become more complex and difficult to interpret with increasing age. For that reason, a fruitful research agenda for understanding these processes is to take a developmental perspective and examine the early development of attentional and cognitive abilities involved in cognitive control. From a broader perspective, research on cognitive development in the first years of life has the potential to yield insight into how early attentional and cognitive abilities lead to higher mental functioning in later years. The A-not-B paradigm is one of the few well-studied paradigms for research on the development of cognitive control in infancy and toddlers. In this paradigm, 8- to 12-month-olds tend to search successfully for an object that is repeatedly hidden in location A, and continue to search at this location despite having seen the object being hidden at a new location (B). The 9 repetition of the previously correct response that is no longer appropriate is called an A-not-B error or perseverative error. Consequently, flexible shift of response set is needed for successful performance and with development children improve on the task sustaining longer delays between hiding and search without perseverating (e.g., Diamond, 1985). This improvement is taken as an indication of development of cognitive control. The general purpose of this thesis has been to explore the early development of cognitive control and particularly the role of attentional control for infants’ and toddlers’ performance on the A-not-B task. This has been done in a series of experiments. In Study I we used a manual version of the task and studied individual differences in infants’ looking and reaching performance. In Study II and Study III we employed an eye tracker and assessed infants and toddlers’ performance by measuring their gaze under conditions marked by different attention demands in a looking version of the task (Study II & III). Before proceeding with a description of the early development of attention and cognitive control, I begin by clarifying the concepts of cognitive control and attention. Cognitive control As humans, we do not just reflexively react to salient sensory information in our immediate environment. We can efficiently interact with other humans and objects, engage in complex behaviors involving extended goals, and predict the