Learning-based cognitive control: developmental trajectories in children aged 5- to 14- years

Area of Science:

• Developmental psychology
• Cognitive neuroscience
• Child psychology

Background:

• Learning-based cognitive control (CC) involves implicitly adapting behavior to contextual regularities.
• The developmental trajectory of learning-based CC, especially under varying cognitive demands, is not well understood.
• Previous research has primarily focused on young children's CC, leaving a gap in understanding its development across childhood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the developmental progression of learning-based CC in children aged 5-14 years.
• To examine how increasing cognitive demands influence the development of CC.
• To identify age-related differences in adapting to predictable versus unpredictable contexts.

Main Methods:

• 149 children (5-14 years) completed modified Flanker and cued go-noGo tasks with List-Wide Proportion Congruency (LWPC) manipulation.
• Tasks contrasted predictable (high congruency) and unpredictable (50% congruency) contexts.
• Analyzed reaction times, accuracy, and delta scores to assess CC efficiency.

Main Results:

• In the low-demand Flanker task, LWPC effects were consistent across ages, indicating early emergence and stability of learning-based CC.
• In the higher-demand Addy task, significant developmental differences were observed.
• Younger children prioritized speed over accuracy, while older children (around 9 years+) showed improved accuracy and a balanced speed-accuracy trade-off, suggesting enhanced inhibitory CC efficiency.

Conclusions:

• Learning-based inhibitory CC develops across childhood, particularly under complex, multi-demand conditions.
• Cognitive control efficiency in managing competing demands improves with age.
• The findings underscore the importance of using ecologically valid paradigms to capture developmental changes in CC.