Cultural Pathways in Cognitive Development: Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

This study was conducted to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the normative development of response monitoring. We examined response monitoring under both relatively simple and more cognitively demanding conditions by measuring behavioral modifications that occurred in the presence of error and conflict. Eighty-nine participants between 4 and 24 years of age were administered two tasks (i.e., Simon and go/no-go). Data were analyzed using t-tests and hierarchical regression. We found that children (4–10 years of age), adolescents (11–17 years of age), and young adults (18–24 years of age) demonstrated significant reaction time slowing in the presence of either error or conflict, and that the magnitude of the slowing in these relatively simple conditions decreased with age. Under more cognitively demanding task conditions, adolescents and young adults demonstrated additional slowing beyond what they exhibited when task conditions were relatively simple. In contrast, children did not show any additional slowing in response to more cognitively demanding task conditions. The findings suggest that older individuals more efficiently modify their behavior in response to subtle changes in task demands.