Executive Control Difficulties Research Articles

The role of executive functions in mediating the relationship between adult ADHD symptoms and hyperfocus in university students

BackgroundHyperfocus, a state of intense, narrow and prolonged attentional focus, has been associated with symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in both clinical and non-clinical populations. Hyperfocus may be explained by difficulties in executive control, typically observed in ADHD. AimsTo investigate (1) whether ADHD and executive functions (EF) are associated with hyperfocus and (2) whether EF mediate the relationship between ADHD symptoms and hyperfocus. Methods and proceduresA non-clinical sample of 380 university students (264 females) completed self-reports of ADHD, EF, hyperfocus and hyperfocus during rewarding activities. Outcomes and resultsIncreased difficulties in EF and severity of ADHD symptoms were significantly and positively correlated with a higher frequency of hyperfocus. Moreover, EF difficulties partially mediated the relationship between ADHD and hyperfocus (after controlling for sex and substance use), but not the relationship between ADHD and hyperfocus during rewarding activities. Conclusions and implicationsDifficulties in EF partially explained the higher frequency of hyperfocus, but not of hyperfocus during rewarding activities, among university students reporting more severe ADHD symptoms. Future research should investigate whether and how specific EF and other ADHD-related neurocognitive difficulties (e.g., reward sensitivity) contribute to various types of hyperfocus experiences in ADHD. What this paper adds?This paper is a first attempt to explain the relationship between adult ADHD symptoms and hyperfocus experiences. Our findings suggest that, although highly correlated, existing self-reports of hyperfocus measure different aspects of this experience: hyperfocus and reward-related hyperfocus. We replicate previous findings that indicated a greater frequency of both types of hyperfocus in ADHD. Additionally, we demonstrate a connection between EF difficulties and different aspects of hyperfocus. Finally, we extend previous findings by proposing that EF difficulties partially explain the relationship between ADHD and hyperfocus, but not the relationship between ADHD and reward-related hyperfocus. We hypothesize that other neurocognitive difficulties (e.g., reward sensitivity) may contribute to explain the relationship between ADHD and different aspects of hyperfocus.

Math anxiety and attention: Biased orienting to math symbols or less efficient attentional control?

Previous research about the existence of an attentional bias for math in highly math-anxious (HMA) individuals shows inconsistent results, and methodologies used so far cannot distinguish the various components of attentional bias. Here we adapted Grafton and MacLeod (2014)’s methodology to assess biases linked to math anxiety in engagement and disengagement when task-irrelevant math and neutral symbols are briefly presented. Twenty-one HMA and 21 low math-anxious individuals were asked to perform the attentional task just after solving an arithmetic task expected to generate group differences in state anxiety. Considering attentional control theory, state anxiety will likely increase allocation of attention to task-irrelevant stimuli. Therefore, individual differences in efficiency responding to this task, which despite being simple and non-mathematical is interrupted by task-irrelevant stimuli, were also analyzed to study whether HMA individuals show reduced attentional control. Our results provide evidence against the presence of an attentional bias towards/against mathematical symbols in visuospatial orienting of the HMA population, neither in the form of an engagement bias nor as a disengagement bias. Rather, HMA individuals were slower and could not take advantage of a longer interval to overcome distraction, which suggest less efficient attentional control, at least when they experience higher state anxiety. Therefore, it is unlikely that an attentional bias for math may originate or aggravate math anxiety. However, reduced attentional control may underlie the less efficient processing on math tasks usually shown by HMA individuals, so research on attention in math anxiety should keep focusing on HMA’s difficulties in executive control.

The Influence of Executive Processing on Reading Comprehension During Adolescence

AbstractThis paper reviews three studies investigating the relationship between brain regions involved in executive control and those involved in reading comprehension in typically‐developing teens. In the first study, three regions of posterior left lateral prefrontal cortex (i.e., precentral gyrus, inferior frontal junction, inferior frontal gyrus) were consistently activated across three task domains: reading comprehension, numerical estimation, and executive processes in working memory, suggesting these regions exert domain‐general executive control. In a second study, brain activity in the precentral gyrus during reading comprehension was found to be associated with individual differences in reading achievement. A subsequent investigation indicated that while all three prefrontal regions exhibit greater connectivity to the angular gyrus during reading comprehension compared to symbol identification, each also exhibits unique connectivity to distinct posterior regions implicated in reading processes. Hence, reading difficulties during adolescence may arise, in part, from difficulties in executive control over processing in language‐related brain regions.

A-294 Mind-Wandering in Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Exploratory Multi-Case Study

Abstract Objective: Executive dysfunction has become a recent topic of interest in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) due to proposed contributions to functional impairments and decreased quality of life. Executive function in ASD is not conclusive; thus, a novel performance measure to explore a constellation of executive function subsets is mind-wandering. This multi-case study aimed to explore mind-wandering through the executive failure hypothesis and the meta-awareness hypothesis with autistic teens and young adults. Methods: Six autistic individuals with intact intellectual functioning were extensively investigated using a sustained attention task, thought probes, open-ended interviews, and retrospective trait questionnaires. Inclusion criteria included an FSIQ > 80 on either the WISC-V or WAIS-IV. Executive function was measured using the DKEFS Verbal Fluency subtest. Retrospective trait questionnaires included: Metacognitions Questionnaire-30, Spontaneous and Deliberate Mind-Wandering Scales, and Mind Excessively Wandering Scale. Results: Responses revealed that the sampled autistic individuals engaged in a variety of task-related, task-unrelated, intentional, unintentional, directed, and undirected mind-wandering events, both with and without awareness. Notably, autistic individuals in this sample reported engaging in intentional mind-wandering without awareness as well as unintentional mind-wandering despite exceptional executive functioning, raising questions about the validity of the executive failure and meta-awareness hypotheses in ASD. Conclusion: Overall, despite underlying difficulties in executive control and meta-awareness, autistic individuals in this multi-case study successfully reported on their own experience of thought and were able to exert control over their own thinking. As such, future research should further explore how extent of mind-wandering ability may relate to cognitive-based interventions as well as diagnostic differentials within ASD.

Verbal fluency difficulties in aphasia: A combination of lexical and executive control deficits.

BackgroundVerbal fluency tasks are routinely used in clinical assessment and research studies of aphasia. People with aphasia produce fewer items in verbal fluency tasks. It remains unclear if their output is limited solely by their lexical difficulties and/or has a basis in their executive control abilities. Recent research has illustrated that detailed characterization of verbal fluency performance using temporal characteristics of words retrieved, clustering and switching, and pause durations, along with separate measures of executive control stands to inform our understanding of the lexical and cognitive underpinnings of verbal fluency in aphasia.AimsTo determine the locus of the verbal fluency difficulties in aphasia, we compared semantic and letter fluency trials between people with aphasia and healthy control participants using a wide range of variables to capture the performance between the two groups. The groups were also tested on separate measures of executive control to determine the relationship amongst these tasks and fluency performance.Methods & ProceduresSemantic (animal) and letter (F, A, S) fluency data for 60s trials were collected from 14 people with aphasia (PWA) and 24 healthy adult controls (HC). Variables, such as number of correct responses, clustering and switching analyses, were performed along with temporal measures of the retrieved words (response latencies) and pause durations. Participants performed executive control tasks to measure inhibitory control, mental‐set shifting and memory span.Outcomes & ResultsCompared with HC, PWA produced fewer correct responses, showed greater difficulty with the letter fluency condition, were slower in getting started with the trials, showed slower retrieval times as noted in within‐ and between‐cluster pause durations, and switched less often. Despite these retrieval difficulties, PWA showed a similar decline in the rate of recall to HC, and had similar cluster size. Executive control measures correlated primarily with the letter fluency variables: mostly for PWA and in one instance for HC.Conclusions & ImplicationsPoorer performance for PWA is a combination of difficulties in both the lexical and executive components of the verbal fluency task. Our findings highlight the importance of detailed characterization of fluency performance in deciphering the underlying mechanism of retrieval difficulties in aphasia, and illustrate the importance of using letter fluency trials to tap into executive control processes.WHAT THIS PAPER ADDSWhat is already known on the subject PWA typically show impaired performance in verbal fluency tasks. It is debated whether this impaired performance is a result of their lexical difficulties or executive control difficulties, or a combination of both. This debate continues because previous studies have mostly used semantic fluency condition without including letter fluency condition; used a limited range of variables (e.g., number of correct responses); and not included separate executive control measures to explain the performance pattern in aphasia. This research addresses these outstanding issues to determine the specific contribution of lexical and executive control processes in verbal fluency in aphasia by including: both semantic and letter fluency conditions; a wide range of variables to identify the relative contribution of lexical and executive control mechanisms; and independent measures of executive control. What this paper adds to existing knowledge Using the multidimensional analysis approach for verbal fluency performance from both semantic and letter fluency conditions, this is the first study to systematically demonstrate that PWA had difficulties in both lexical and executive control components of the task. At the individual level, PWA had greater difficulty on the letter fluency condition compared with semantic fluency. We observed significant correlations between the executive control measures and verbal fluency measures primarily for the letter fluency condition. This research makes a significant contribution to our understanding of lexical and executive control aspects in word production in aphasia. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? From a clinical perspective, this research highlights the importance of using a full range of verbal fluency and executive control measures to tap into the lexical as well as executive control abilities of PWA, and also the utility of using letter fluency to tap into the executive control processes in PWA.

Altered Heart Rate Variability During Gaming in Internet Gaming Disorder

Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is characterized by addiction to online gaming and reduced executive control, particularly when individuals are exposed to gaming-related cues. Executive control can be measured as vagally mediated heart rate variability (HRV), which corresponds to variability in the time interval between heart beats. In this study, we investigated whether individuals with IGD have altered HRV while playing online games. We hypothesized that while gaming, individuals with IGD would exhibit phasic suppression of vagally mediated HRV, which would reflect executive control dysfunction during game play. To test this, we measured the changes of HRV when young males with IGD were engaged in real-time online gaming. The changes of HRV were associated with the severity of IGD assessed by self-reports and prefrontal gray matter volume (GMV) calculated by voxel-based morphometry. We included 23 IGD subjects and 18 controls in our analyses. Changes in HRV were not statistically different between IGD subjects and controls. Within the IGD group, however, subjects showed significant decreases in high-frequency (HF) HRV during gaming. Furthermore, the degree of decrease correlated with IGD severity and prefrontal GMV. Importantly, this phasic suppression of HF-HRV in response to gaming did not occur in control subjects. In conclusion, young males with IGD showed an altered HRV response while playing an online game, reflecting their difficulties in executive control over gaming. The dynamics between executive control and reward seeking may be out of balance during game play in IGD.

Verbal fluency performance in Bengali-English bilingual aphasia

Event Abstract Back to Event Verbal fluency performance in Bengali-English bilingual aphasia Abhijeet Patra1 and Arpita Bose1* 1 University of Reading, School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, United Kingdom Introduction: Research has shown that impairments in executive control may influence word production abilities in aphasia[1,2]. However, studies investigating the contribution of lexical retrieval and executive control processes during word production are mostly limited to monolingual aphasia[3,4]. Very little is known about bilinguals with aphasia (BWA). A better approach to understand the relationship between lexical retrieval and executive control processes might be to use a task that simultaneously draw upon these processes. In a verbal fluency task, lexical and executive contribution for semantic and letter fluency conditions are different; semantic fluency largely depends on lexical retrieval abilities, whilst letter fluency largely depends on executive control abilities. Characterisation of verbal fluency performance beyond number of correct responses (CR) (e.g., Fluency Difference Score FDS; cluster size; number of switches; temporal measures such as within- and between-cluster pauses), have enabled researchers to specifically speculate the components of performance that depends on lexical retrieval vs. executive control processes[5,6,7]. Previous research has shown that in semantic fluency, BWA produced fewer CR, smaller cluster sizes, and fewer number of switches compared to bilingual healthy adults (BHA)[5,6]. These studies have emphasised the greater role of lexical processes in performance differences between BWA and BHA. However, in absence of comparison to letter fluency, it remains inconclusive if it is only the lexical processes that are compromised in BWA. We compared semantic and letter fluency conditions between Bengali-English BWA and BHA to determine: a) if poor performance in aphasia is due to lexical retrieval and/or executive control difficulties; b) are the differences more exaggerated on measures which depend heavily on the executive control processes. Bengali is a South-Asian language spoken by 180.5 million speakers in the world[8]. Despite that aphasia research reporting Bengali speakers remain under-presented (only one study)[9]. We attempt to fill this gap in the literature. Methods & Procedure: Semantic (animals, fruits and vegetables) and letter fluency (/p/, /k/, /m/) 60-seconds trails were collected from eight non-fluent Bengali-English BWA and eight Bengali-English BHA in their dominant language (Bengali). The groups were matched for age, gender, years of education, and bilingualism measures (language proficiency, usage, dominance). We measured: CR, FDS ((CR.semantic fluency - CR.letter fluency)/CR.semantic fluency), cluster size, number of switches, within-and between-cluster pause. Results and Discussion: Table 1 presents results summary. Overall, on both fluency conditions, compared to BHA, BWA produced fewer number of CR, had higher FDS, made fewer switches, and had longer between-cluster pauses. These results are indicative of difficulty in the executive control component of the verbal fluency task in addition to their lexical difficulties[4,7]. Both groups performed similarly on cluster size and within-cluster pauses. Fewer number of CR, and fewer switches for BWA are consistent with the literature[5,6]. No difference in cluster size and within-cluster pause suggest similar search strategies used by BWA and BHA while accessing the mental lexicon. Our results demonstrate that inclusion of letter fluency and a full range of verbal fluency measures are necessary to understand the effect of lexical and executive control processes in verbal fluency performance. Acknowledgements We would like to thank all our participants for their time and effort. We also would like to acknowledge Felix trust, UK for the PhD fellowship.

Serious games in K-12 education

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the integration of serious games (SGs) in the area of special educational needs in the last ten years (2007-2017).Design/methodology/approachSGs indicate positive effects on students with special educational needs and promote a multi-sensory style of learning.FindingsResearch showed that SGs are able to keep K-12 education students with attention, memory and developmental disabilities engaged in classroom facilities scaffolding their learning through increased motivation, independence, autonomy and resultant self-esteem.Research limitations/implicationsTime constraints, cost and availability of appropriate games as well as the small sample of the individuals being investigated are some of the research limitations the paper refers to.Practical implicationsLearning through SGs has educational values that are based on learning concepts intrinsically motivating.Social implicationsStudents with attention, memory and developmental disabilities demonstrate characteristics of engagement, creativity, control and communication.Originality/valueSGs-based learning has proven its value added to students with attention, memory and executive control difficulties as well as mental or developmental disabilities engaging students better than when using traditional methods.

Verbal and Non-verbal Fluency in Adults with Developmental Dyslexia: Phonological Processing or Executive Control Problems?

The executive function of fluency describes the ability to generate items according to specific rules. Production of words beginning with a certain letter (phonemic fluency) is impaired in dyslexia, while generation of words belonging to a certain semantic category (semantic fluency) is typically unimpaired. However, in dyslexia, verbal fluency has generally been studied only in terms of overall words produced. Furthermore, performance of adults with dyslexia on non-verbal design fluency tasks has not been explored but would indicate whether deficits could be explained by executive control, rather than phonological processing, difficulties. Phonemic, semantic and design fluency tasks were presented to adults with dyslexia and without dyslexia, using fine-grained performance measures and controlling for IQ. Hierarchical regressions indicated that dyslexia predicted lower phonemic fluency, but not semantic or design fluency. At the fine-grained level, dyslexia predicted a smaller number of switches between subcategories on phonemic fluency, while dyslexia did not predict the size of phonemically related clusters of items. Overall, the results suggested that phonological processing problems were at the root of dyslexia-related fluency deficits; however, executive control difficulties could not be completely ruled out as an alternative explanation. Developments in research methodology, equating executive demands across fluency tasks, may resolve this issue. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Information and Communications Technologies (ICT): Problematic use of Internet, video games, mobile phones, instant messaging and social networks using MULTICAGE-TIC.

Use/abuse of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) has in recent years become a topic of great interest. Current discussion addresses whether it must be considered addictive behaviour and if it is a problem that primarily affects adolescents and youth. This study aims to understand the problems that affect people of all ages in controlling the use of these ICTs and whether they are related to mental health problems, stress and difficulties in executive control of behaviour. A survey was administered through social networks and email, using the MULTICAGE-ICT, a questionnaire that explores problems in the use of Internet, mobile phones, video games, instant messaging and social networks. Additionally, the Prefrontal Symptom Inventory, General Health Questionnaire and Perceived Stress Scale were administered. The sample was comprised of 1,276 individuals of all ages from different Spanish-speaking countries. The results indicate that about 50% of the sample, regardless of age or other variables, presents significant problems with the use of these technologies, and that these problems are directly related to symptoms of poor prefrontal functioning, stress and mental health problems. The results reveal the need for reconsidering whether we are facing an addictive behaviour or a new problem demanding environmental, psychological, sociological and sociopolitical explanations; therefore, it is necessary to reformulate actions to be implemented to address and refocus our understanding of the problem.

Executive Control in Depressive Rumination: Backward Inhibition and Non-inhibitory Switching Performance in a Modified Mixed Antisaccade Task.

Background and Objectives: The present study examines backward inhibition (BI) and non-inhibitory switching performance among depressed and healthy participants in a modified mixed antisaccade task. Specifically, sad and neutral faces were incorporated in the design to examine executive control difficulties associated with brooding trait. Methods: Thirty-nine participants took part in the study, including 19 depressed patients and 20 healthy control subjects. Participants completed a diagnostic interview and self-report questionnaires, including the Beck Depression Inventory and Ruminative Response Scale-Brooding Subscale. They were then instructed to complete prosaccade and antisaccade trials in the pure and mixed blocks whereby eye gazes were tracked to assess inhibition and switching efficiency. Results: For the switching effects, a significant group × brooding × task type interaction was found as hypothesized when multilevel modeling analysis was employed. Switching deficits associated with brooding was found to be greatest when sad faces were presented to depressed group. No significant results in BI or error rates were observed. Conclusion: The patterns observed suggest that as opposed to BI, set shifting difficulty associated with brooding trait may be modulated by negative mood and cognition. In future research, emotional faces other than sad faces may be used to further explore if the observations could be generalized to other affective conditions.

Hot executive control and response to a stimulant in a double-blind randomized trial in children with ADHD

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is thought to involve an executive inhibitory control (IC) deficit, yet it is not clear if this is a general deficit affecting both cold and hot EC, and if methylphenidate (MPH) affects both systems in treated children. We explored this by using a Stroop-like task in children with ADHD as compared to controls, containing different types of emotional stimuli (six levels), and we investigated the role of intervention with MPH on IC as compared to placebo. Children with ADHD and controls (N = 40; 7–13 years old) were tested with a hot and cold Stroop-like task. This was followed by a double-blind placebo-controlled crossover trial of the effect of MPH on these skills. Children with ADHD showed a specific difficulty inhibiting their responses, particularly to hot, angry and frustration-inducing stimuli. Further, treatment with MPH was effective in reducing errors toward frustration-inducing stimuli as compared to placebo (p < .05, η2 = .347), particularly with repeated exposure to the stimuli. Results indicate that children with ADHD experience executive control difficulties, particularly in hot negative emotional contexts. These emotion regulation difficulties are amenable to stimulant intervention.

Developmental pathways from prenatal tobacco and stress exposure to behavioral disinhibition

Prenatal tobacco exposure (PTE) and prenatal stress exposure (PSE) both have been linked to externalizing behavior, although their effects generally have been considered in isolation. Here, we aimed to characterize the joint or interactive roles of PTE and PSE in early developmental pathways to behavioral disinhibition, a profile of cognitive and behavioral under-control that presages severe externalizing behavior. As part of a prospective, longitudinal study, 296 children were assessed at a mean age of 5years. Exposures were assessed via repeated interviews across the prenatal period and bioassays of cotinine were obtained. Behavioral disinhibition was assessed using temperament measures in infancy, performance-based executive control tasks and measures of disruptive and inattentive behavior. PSE was associated with a higher probability of difficult temperament in infancy. Each exposure independently predicted poorer executive control at age 5years. Difficult temperament and executive control difficulties in turn predicted elevated levels of disruptive behavior, although links from PTE and PSE to parent-reported attention problems were less robust. Children who experienced these prenatal exposures in conjunction with higher postnatal stress exposure showed the lowest executive control and highest levels of disruptive behavior. Findings highlight the compounding adverse impact of PTE and PSE on children's behavioral trajectories. Given their high concordance, prenatal health campaigns should target these exposures in tandem.

The role of LIFG-based executive control in sentence comprehension

Prior research has shown that patients with damage to the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) can have difficulties in executive control as well as understanding syntactic garden-paths, that is, sentences with a temporary syntactic ambiguity that resolve towards a less preferred interpretation. The present study tested two LIFG patients on object/subject garden path and matched syntactically unambiguous sentences. Besides syntactic ambiguity, support for the preferred but ultimately inappropriate interpretation was manipulated via verb bias, using verbs that were neutral between alternative analyses and verbs that were biased towards the context-inappropriate option. The LIFG patients, a non-LIFG patient, and healthy controls were tested on a sentence interpretation task (Experiment 1) and grammaticality judgement (Experiment 2). In contrast to the non-LIFG patient and controls, the LIFG patients showed impaired thematic role assignment across garden-path as well as unambiguous sentences, which tended to be worse with biased verbs. The results argue for a role of executive control in overcoming verb bias across diverse sentence processing situations, including, but not limited to, garden-path revision.

Association of the Conners’ Kiddie Continuous Performance Test (K-CPT) Performance and Parent-Report Measures of Behavior and Executive Functioning

Objective: To explore the relationship between the Conners’ Kiddie Continuous Performance Test (K-CPT) performance and parent-report measures of child behavior and executive functioning, and clarify the role of sex in K-CPT performance in preschoolers. Method: Mothers and children recruited to the Health Outcomes and Measures of the Environment Study with complete 5-year assessment data relevant to the analyses were included (N = 127). We examined the association between K-CPT scores and Behavior Assessment System for Children–Second Edition (BASC-2) and Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) scores, with covariate adjustment. Results: We found no significant associations between K-CPT, BASC-2, and BRIEF scores in the full sample. In sex-stratified analyses, we found unusually fast reaction time on K-CPT was related to executive control difficulties in girls, whereas unusually slow reaction time was related to the same difficulties in boys. Omission errors were associated with executive difficulties only in boys. Conclusion: The K-CPT may prove to be a useful indicator for early onset of executive control difficulties in preschool-aged children.

Self-perspective inhibition deficits cannot be explained by general executive control difficulties

Understanding other people's point of view is crucial for successful social interaction but can be particularly challenging in situations where the other person's point view conflicts with our own view. Such situations require executive control processes that help us resist interference from our own perspective. In this study, we examined how domain-general these executive processes are. We report the performance of two pairs of brain-damaged patients who had sustained lesions in different areas of the prefrontal cortex and who showed deficits in classic executive function tasks. The patients were presented with desire reasoning tasks in which two sources of executive control were manipulated: the need to resist interference from one's own desire when inferring someone else's conflicting desire and the need to resist interference from the ascription of an approach motivation when inferring an avoidance-desire. The pattern of performance of the two pairs of patients conformed to a classic double dissociation with one pair of patients showing a deficit in resisting interference from their own perspective but not from the ascription of an approach motivation while the other pair of patients showed the opposite profile. The results are discussed in relation to the specificity of the processes recruited when we resist interference from our own perspective.

Attention in spina bifida myelomeningocele: Relations with brain volume and integrity.

This study investigated the relations of tectal volume and superior parietal cortex, as well as alterations in tectocortical white matter connectivity, with the orienting and executive control attention networks in individuals with spina bifida myelomeningocele (SBM). Probabilistic diffusion tractography and quantification of tectal and superior parietal cortical volume were performed on 74 individuals aged 8–29 with SBM and a history of hydrocephalus. Behavioral assessments measured posterior (covert orienting) and anterior (conflict resolution, attentional control) attention network functions. Reduced tectal volume was associated with slower covert orienting; reduced superior parietal cortical volume was associated with slower conflict resolution; and increased axial diffusivity and radial diffusivity along both frontal and parietal tectocortical pathways were associated with reduced attentional control. Results suggest that components of both the orienting and executive control attention networks are impaired in SBM. Neuroanatomical disruption to the orienting network appears more robust and a direct consequence of characteristic midbrain dysmorphology; whereas, executive control difficulties may emerge from parietal cortical anomalies and reduced frontal and parietal cortical–subcortical white matter pathways susceptible to the pathophysiological effects of congenital hydrocephalus.

Rejection sensitivity and executive control: Joint predictors of borderline personality features

Two studies tested the hypothesis that rejection sensitivity (RS) and executive control (EC) jointly predict borderline personality (BP) features. We expected high RS to be related to increased vulnerability for BP features specifically in people who also had difficulties in executive control (EC). Study 1 tested this hypothesis using a sample of college students ( N = 379) whereas Study 2 ( N = 104) was conducted using a community sample of adults. Both studies operationalized EC by a self-report measure. For a subsample in Study 2 ( N = 80), ability to delay gratification at age 4 was also used as an early behavioral precursor of EC in adulthood. In both studies, high RS was associated with increased BP features among people low in self-reported EC. Among those high in self-reported EC, the relationship between RS and BP features was attenuated. Study 2 found parallel findings using preschool delay ability as a behavioral index of EC. These findings suggest that EC may protect high RS people against BP features.