THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONTINGENT NEGATIVE VARIATION DURING AN EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING/PLANNING TASK IN CHILDREN, ADOLESCENTS, AND ADULTS By KIMBERLY ANDERSON A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2006 1 Copyright 2006 by Kimberly Anderson 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my wonderful advisor Dr. Keith Berg for his dedication during my entire time at graduate school. I would also like to thank the many research assistants that gave their time to helping complete this project, it could not have been done without their tireless efforts. Lastly, I want to thank my best friend, Teri DeLucca, for her constant smiles and uplifting prayers. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................3 LIST OF TABLES...........................................................................................................................6 LIST OF FIGURES .........................................................................................................................7 ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................................9 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................10 2 LITERATURE REVIEW.......................................................................................................11 Planning ..................................................................................................................................11 The Development of Planning................................................................................................11 Electrophysiological Indices and Origins of Anticipation......................................................13 Developmental Changes in the CNV......................................................................................15 Neural Components of Planning.............................................................................................16 The Development of Planning Abilities as Measured by Performance and the Contingent Negative Variation ..........................................................................................18 Current Study..........................................................................................................................21 Proposed Aims........................................................................................................................21 Aim 1 – Developmental Change in Performance............................................................22 Aim 2 – Developmental Change in CNV Form. .............................................................22 Aim 3 – Performance and CNV Relationships................................................................23 3 MATERIALS AND METHODS ...........................................................................................26 Participants .............................................................................................................................26 Measures.................................................................................................................................26 Tower of London.............................................................................................................26 Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) ......................................................................28 CNV Recording Methods .......................................................................................................29 Procedure ................................................................................................................................29 Data Analysis..........................................................................................................................31 EEG Preprocessing..........................................................................................................31 DC Drift Correction and Epoching..................................................................................31 Artifact Rejection ............................................................................................................31 4 RESULTS...............................................................................................................................35 Aim 1: Development of Behavioral Performance ..................................................................35 Proportion Correct...........................................................................................................35 4 Response time on Correctly Solved Problems ................................................................36 Aim 1 Summary:.....................................................................................................................37 Aim 2 – Development of the CNV.........................................................................................38 Middle Wave Changes ....................................................................................................39 Late Wave........................................................................................................................42 Aim 2 Summary......................................................................................................................43 Aim 3 – Relation to Performance ...........................................................................................44 Proportion Correct...........................................................................................................44 Reaction Time .................................................................................................................45 5 DISCUSSION.........................................................................................................................55 Effect of Difficulty .................................................................................................................55 Effect of Age...........................................................................................................................56 The Functional Nature of the Middle Wave...........................................................................56 Summary of the P300 Issue ....................................................................................................60 The Functional Nature of the Late Wave ...............................................................................63 Phases of Planning..................................................................................................................65 Berg and Byrd Theory of Development .................................................................................66 6 FUTURE WORK....................................................................................................................69 LIST OF REFERENCES...............................................................................................................73 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .........................................................................................................77 5 LIST OF TABLES Table page 3-1 Demographic Information on complete data set................................................................33 3-2 Number of Trials Kept after Pre-Analysis Steps ...............................................................33 4-1 Means and Standard Deviations for Average Response times before correction applied................................................................................................................................48 6 LIST OF FIGURES Figure page 2-1 The CNV waveform can be broken into 2 components (labeled 1 and 2 in this figure). Section 1 denotes the early wave and Section 2 denotes the late wave...............24 2-2 Child and adult proportion correct across the 4 difficulty levels presented. For both children and adults, as difficulty level increases there is a decrease in proportion correct. ...............................................................................................................................24 2-3 Child (black) and Adult (red) CNV waveforms during the 6-second ISI from the Fz lead. Segment of wave marked 1 represents the period associated with the early- wave, segment marked 2 represents the period associated with the positive component found only in children and segment marked 3 represents the period associated with the late-wave.............................................................................................25 3-1 Presentation Stimuli and Timing of Paradigm. The Tower of London was presented for 6 seconds, followed by a prompt to respond for 2 seconds. All problems were then followed by performance-graded feedback for 2 seconds. Between problems there was a varying 3-7 second wait period.......................................................................34 3-2 Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. The PPVT is a measure of verbal ability...................34 4-1 Proportion Correct . The measure of proportion correct decreased as problem difficulty increased. As participants increased with Age proportion correct increased. ...........................................................................................................................48 4-2 As difficulty