Abstract
In this study we examined whether developmental changes in using verbal self-cueing for task-goal maintenance are dependent on the amount of task practice and task-sequencing demands. To measure task-goal maintenance we applied a switching paradigm in which children either performed only task A or B in single-task blocks or switched between them on every second trial in mixed-task blocks. Task-goal maintenance was determined by comparing the performance between both blocks (mixing costs). The influence of verbal self-cueing was measured by instructing children to either name the next task aloud or not to verbalize during task preparation. Task-sequencing demands were varied between groups whereas one group received spatial task cues to support keeping track of the task sequence, while the other group did not. We also varied by the amount of prior practice in task switching while one group of participants practiced task switching first, before performing the task naming in addition, and the other group did it vice versa. Results of our study investigating younger (8–10 years) and older children (11–13 years) revealed no age differences in beneficial effects of verbal self-cueing. In line with previous findings, children showed reduced mixing costs under task-naming instructions and under conditions of low task-sequence demands (with the presence of spatial task cues). Our results also indicated that these benefits were only obtained for those groups of children that first received practice in task switching alone with no additional verbalization instruction. These findings suggest that internal task-cueing strategies can be efficiently used in children but only if they received prior practice in the underlying task so that demands on keeping and coordinating various instructions are reduced. Moreover, children benefitted from spatial task cues for better task-goal maintenance only if no verbal task-cueing strategy was introduced first.
Highlights
In recent years, a growing number of studies have investigated the relationship between the use of language, such as verbal selfcueing strategies, and developmental changes in cognitive control [for reviews, see (Winsler et al, 2009; Cragg and Nation, 2010; Kray and Ferdinand, 2013)]
In particular we were interested in examining whether developmental changes in benefitting from verbal self-cueing in a task-switching situation are dependent on different working-memory demands that were varied by the amount of practice and task-sequencing demands
In this study, we investigated whether developmental changes in the use of verbal self-cueing for efficiently switching between cognitive tasks are influenced by different demands on working memory
Summary
A growing number of studies have investigated the relationship between the use of language, such as verbal selfcueing strategies, and developmental changes in cognitive control [for reviews, see (Winsler et al, 2009; Cragg and Nation, 2010; Kray and Ferdinand, 2013)]. These studies found that younger children benefitted more from verbal self-cueing for maintaining task goals than older children and adults (Kray et al, 2008) and were less efficient in translating arbitrary cues into task goals than older children (Chevalier and Blaye, 2009; Blaye and Chevalier, 2011), suggesting that they probably do not spontaneously apply verbal strategies. We varied the demands on keeping track of task goals and their sequence during switching in order to examine whether beneficial effects of verbal labeling the task goal become larger without the presence of external task cues
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