Effect Of Inhibitory Control Research Articles

A - 6 Effects of Inhibitory Control and Episodic Memory Deficits on Functioning in Probable Mild Cognitive Impairment and Individually Matched Healthy Controls

Abstract Objective Episodic memory and inhibitory control deficits are prevalent among those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). These deficits have been associated with worse functioning; however, the predictive utility of specific cognitive deficits vary. We investigated whether deficits of episodic memory and inhibitory control are associated with worse physical activity and life satisfaction among people with probable MCI (pMCI). Method The study included 79 pMCI and 79 individually matched controls (HC) who participated in the Human Connectome Project - Aging study. Groups were determined based on MoCA scores (pMCI ≤23; HC ≥ 26). Participants completed the Go/No-go (GNG) and Face Name (FNT) tasks during functional MRI. Associations between GNG False Alarms (GNG FA) and FNT Recognition Accuracy (GNG RA) scores and International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) and the PROMIS General Life Satisfaction (GLS) self-reports were examined. Results The pMCI group exhibited deficits compared to the HC on GNG FA (t (152.17) = −1.26, p = 0.05) and FNT RA (t (85.78) = 13.72, p 0.05). However, hierarchical regressions revealed that the interaction of these cognitive tasks predicted IPAQ (∆R2 = 0.02, F(1, 78) = 3.74, p < 0.05). Conclusions Despite confirmation of cognitive deficits, their effects on function are complex. Therefore, MCI deficits may be detected on screening before they clearly impact functioning, underscoring the utility of screening to facilitate more effective earlier interventions.

The Development of Response and Interference Inhibition in Children: Evidence from Serious Game Training.

A serious game titled "Crossing the Jungle" was developed in this study to train children's inhibition skills using the Stroop task. The effects of inhibitory control on children were tested by a pre-test, post-test, and one-month follow-up test. In the control groups, children were asked to play a commercial game instead. In experiment 1, 48 participants chose either the training or control game voluntarily, whereas, in experiment 2, 44 participants were randomly assigned to either group. In both experiments, children exposed to the serious game demonstrated training effects from the Stroop spatial task and near-transfer effects from the Flanker task. However, transferring effects were not produced by the Go/No-go task. As a result, although the serious game "Crossing the Jungle" does not improve response inhibition, children aged 9 to 12 who play it may benefit from improved interference inhibition abilities. This provides evidence for the mutual independence of interference inhibition and response inhibition in children at this stage.

Effects of Inhibitory Control on Academic Engagement of Tertiary Institutions’ Undergraduates in FCT Abuja, Nigeria.

The study investigated the effects of control inhibition on academic engagement of Tertiary Institutions Undergraduates in FCT Abuja, Nigeria. The study adopted quasi-experimental design, using pre-test, post-test and Control groups. Three research questions and corresponding hypotheses guided the study. The population of the study consisted of all undergraduates in FCT Tertiary institutions in Abuja (85,188).The sample size of the study consisted of 371 undergraduates who were drawn through multi-stage sampling. The Instrument used for data collection included a self-developed Academic Engagement survey instrument (UAES), it has two sections. Section A contained demographic information of the respondents while section B contained 17 items on academic engagement and psychological well-being. The instrument for the treatment is “Inhibitory Control Treatment” (ICT) adapted and modified. The instruments were subjected to reliability analysis using Cronbach Alpha to determine the internal consistency and reliability index of 0.78 and 0.68 respectively were obtained while the content validity was ascertained by three test experts yielded a consensus coefficient of 0.82 and 0.78. The data was analyzed using inferential statistics of paired sample t-test at α 0.05 level of significance. The study’s findings demonstrated that ICT is significantly effective in improving the academic engagement of the Undergraduates in FCT Tertiary institutions. It was recommended that Educational Psychologist should therefore; apply ICT in improving the academic engagement of the undergraduates.

The effect of inhibitory control and language proficiency on intra-sentential switching costs in reading comprehension

Based on the inhibition account and activation account, inhibitory control and language proficiency play big roles on language control mechanisms underlying language switching respectively. But it is still debatable whether inhibitory control and language proficiency play roles in sentential context during bilingual language comprehension, and how and when they work if they both do. The present study examined the specific roles of language proficiency and inhibitory control on modulating intra-sentential switching costs in Chinese-English bilinguals using self-paced reading task. Results indicated that language proficiency and switching direction modulated intra-sentential switching costs significantly. Switching costs were larger when switching into L1 than into L2 for the first two code-switched words due to inhibitory effect, but more costly switching into L2 than into L1 since the third code-switched words owing to the effect of relative language proficiency. During bilingual language processing, inhibition and activation of languages shaped a dynamic interplay of complementary language control processes. Specifically, inhibitory control and language proficiency work as a dynamic continuum in language switching at sentence level. Switching into L1 requires the release of inhibition to L1, but switching into L2 asks the activation and access of L2. The interaction effects of language proficiency and inhibitory control influenced the exertion and components of inhibition. This study reconciled the independent roles of language proficiency and inhibitory control on language switching and constructed a new continuum based on language proficiency.

Body Mass Index and Academic Achievement Among Chinese Secondary School Students: The Mediating Effect of Inhibitory Control and the Moderating Effect of Social Support.

Based on Embodied Cognition Theory, Inhibitory Decline Theory, and Risk Protective Factors Model, this study verified that body mass index (BMI) affects secondary school students’ academic performance through the mechanism of inhibitory control. In addition, it was verified that the strength of this mechanism depends on the teacher, parent, and peer support received by secondary school students. By using height and weight measurements, the classic stroop task, and the social support scale, 264 secondary school students in Shanxi Province, China, were surveyed and their academic performance was collected. The results showed that students with high BMI had poorer academic performance, and inhibitory control partially mediated the effect between BMI and academic performance, with the inhibitory control mediated effect accounting for 36.68% of the total effect. Support from teachers, parents, and peers can ameliorate the negative effects of BMI on academic performance, with teacher support and parental support also ameliorating the negative effects of BMI on inhibitory control. Thus, high BMI impairs inhibitory control and thus has a negative impact on academic performance, which can be buffered by social support.

Inhibitory Control Moderates the Effect of Anxiety on Vagally Mediated Heart Rate Variability: Findings from a Community Sample of Young School-Aged Children

Individuals with anxiety disorders show both excessive and blunted vagally mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) reactivity to stress. Scholars have suggested that differences in cognitive control could explain such heterogeneity, but this proposition has not been tested. The present study hence investigated the moderating effect of executive functions, particularly inhibitory control, on the relationship between anxiety symptoms and vmHRV reactivity. We evaluated anxiety symptoms (a diagnostic interview with parents) and executive functions (parent-reported questionnaire) in 262 six-year-olds from a community sample. vmHRV responses to neutral tasks and stressors were analyzed using latent growth curve modeling. Results supported a moderating effect of inhibitory control; children with more anxiety symptoms and enhanced inhibitory control showed a blunted decrease in vmHRV in response to stressors. In contrast, counterparts with impaired inhibitory control evinced an excessive decrease in vmHRV. Children with no anxiety symptoms did not differ in vmHRV reactivity, independent of the level of inhibitory control. The results could indicate that anxious children with enhanced inhibitory control successfully utilized a cognitive avoidance strategy (i.e. verbal worry) to inhibit expected autonomic arousal in response to threat. Clinical implications are discussed.

The mechanism of inhibitory control on the development of theory of mind in old age—based on the two-component model of psychological theory

Objective Based on the two-component model of theory of mind, the current study explored the cognitive and emotional theory of mind of the elderly by using false-belief pictures and eye-reading tasks respectively, and examined effects of inhibitory control on elderly adults’ cognitive and emotional theory of mind. Method One-hundred twelve elderly participants were randomly recruited, and the control task, cognitive theory of mind, emotional theory of mind and the Stroop task were used. Results The results showed the following: (1) Elderly adults’ theory of mind decreased compared with that of young people; specifically, cognitive theory of mind showed an aging trend (aged above 75 years), while emotional theory of mind developed at a relatively gentle speed during old age; (2) Compared with young people, the inhibitory control of the elderly gently declined among those aged above 75 years; (3) Inhibitory control partially mediated the relationship between age and cognitive theory of mind. Conclusion The cognitive and emotional components of theory of mind in the elderly were distinct. It was difficult for the elderly to complete psychological tasks related to social cognition that required high inhibitory control; however, they could complete psychological tasks that did not require high inhibitory control.

SLEEP QUALITY AND DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS IN LATER-LIFE: CROSS-SECTIONAL EXAMINATION OF COGNITIVE MECHANISMS

Sleep quality relates to depressive symptom endorsement. The mechanisms relating these variables are not clearly elucidated, though inhibitory control and rumination are believed to play key roles. The current study aims to elucidate the relationship between sleep quality and depressive symptoms by examining the moderated mediating effect of inhibitory control and rumination. The sample included 41 community-dwelling older adults (age 70 and older). Measures included the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Inventory, a Stroop task (inhibitory control), the Ruminative Responses Scale, and the Geriatric Depression Scale. A series of bootstrapped models were employed to test hypotheses using a stepped approach. Poorer sleep quality was associated with higher rumination and depressive symptoms; however, these associations were no longer significant among older adults with higher inhibitory control. The association between sleep quality and depression was fully attenuated by rumination, and inhibitory control significantly moderated the association between sleep quality and rumination in the final model. Among community-dwelling older adults, the association between sleep quality and depression is mediated by rumination, and this effect is mitigated by inhibitory control. As such, these findings suggest that inhibitory control may be a relevant target for intervention in older adults with poor sleep quality, rumination, and depressive symptoms.

Neurocognitive and behavioral predictors of social problems in ADHD: A Bayesian framework.

Social problems are a key area of functional impairment for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and converging evidence points to executive dysfunction as a potential mechanism underlying ADHD-related social dysfunction. The evidence is mixed, however, with regard to which neurocognitive abilities account for these relations. A well-characterized group of 117 children ages 8-13 (M = 10.45, SD = 1.53; 43 girls; 69.5% Caucasian/Non-Hispanic) with ADHD (n = 77) and without ADHD (n = 40) were administered multiple, counterbalanced tests of neurocognitive functioning and assessed for social skills via multi-informant reports. Bayesian linear regressions revealed strong support for working memory and cross-informant interfering behaviors (inattention, hyperactivity/impulsivity) as predictors of parent- and teacher-reported social problems. Working memory was also implicated in social skills acquisition deficits, performance deficits, and strengths based on parent and/or teacher report; inattention and/or hyperactivity showed strong correspondence with cross-informant social problems in all models. There was no evidence for, and in most models strong evidence against, effects of inhibitory control and processing speed. The ADHD group was impaired relative to the non-ADHD group on social skills (d = 0.82-0.88), visuospatial working memory (d = 0.89), and phonological working memory (d = 0.58). In contrast, the Bayesian ANOVAs indicated that the ADHD and non-ADHD groups were equivalent on processing speed, IQ, age, gender, and socioeconomic status (SES). There was no support for or against group differences in inhibition. These findings confirm that ADHD is associated with impaired social performance, and implicate working memory and core ADHD symptoms in the acquisition and performance of socially skilled behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record

Speech understanding in noise in elderly adults: the effect of inhibitory control and syntactic complexity.

Previous research has suggested that speech perception in elderly adults is influenced not only by age-related hearing loss or presbycusis but also by declines in cognitive abilities, by background noise and by the syntactic complexity of the message. To gain further insight into the influence of these cognitive as well as acoustic and linguistic factors on speech perception in elderly adults by investigating inhibitory control as a listener characteristic and background noise type and syntactic complexity as input characteristics. Phoneme identification was measured in different noise conditions and in different linguistic contexts (single words, sentences with varying syntactic complexity). Additionally, inhibitory control was measured using a visual stimulus-response matching task. Fifty-one adults participated in this study, including elderly adults with age-related hearing loss (n = 9) and with normal hearing (n = 17), and a control group of normal hearing younger adults (n = 25). The analysis revealed that elderly adults with normal hearing and with hearing loss were less likely to identify successfully phonemes in single words than younger normal hearing controls. In the context of sentences, only elderly adults with hearing loss had a lower odds of correct phoneme perception than the control group. Additionally, in elderly adults with hearing loss, phoneme-in-sentence perception was linked to age-related declines in inhibitory control. In all participants, phoneme identification in sentences was influenced by both noise type and syntactic complexity. Inhibitory control and syntactic complexity might play a significant role in speech perception, especially in elderly listeners. These factors might also influence the results of clinical assessments of speech perception. Testing procedures thus need to be selected and their results interpreted carefully with these influences in mind.

Erratum to: The effect of inhibitory control on general mathematics achievement and fraction comparison in middle school children

Individual differences in inhibitory control have been shown to relate to general mathematics achievement, but whether this relation varies for specific areas within mathematics is a question that remains open. Here, we evaluate if inhibitory processes play a specific role in the particular case of fraction comparison, where learners must ignore the potentially misleading information provided by the natural numbers composing fractions (e.g. 2/3 > 4/7 despite 2 < 4 and 3 < 7). To do this, we presented a sample of Chilean children (N = 450) from 5th, 6th, and 7th grade with a numerical comparison task tapping inhibitory and other processes. Results showed that both general math achievement and accuracy in comparing fractions were significantly predicted by inhibition. The former association, however, turned out to mediate the latter one. Another process, related to visual priming, predicted children’s likelihood to answer fraction comparison items focusing exclusively on the fraction components. This relation was, furthermore, not mediated by general math achievement. Altogether, these findings shed light on the mental processes underlying the early stages of the learning of fractions.

The effect of inhibitory control and its training on L1 and a new learned language switching

Aims: This study aimed to investigate how individuals’ inhibitory control (IC) ability affects language switching in the initial period of language learning. Design: Using a pretest/posttest design and event-related potential (ERP) methodology, we investigated the effect of IC on Chinese–English bilinguals during their language switching between Chinese (L1) and Korean (a language new to the participants, Lnew). All participants were required to name pictures (picture-naming task) in their L1 and Lnew in the pretest and posttest. Low-IC participants received an IC task training between the pretest and the posttest, while the high-IC group did not. Data and analysis: Analyses of both response latencies and ERP data were conducted by repeated-measures ANOVA. Findings: Results showed that the high-IC group exhibited symmetrical switch costs in both the pretest and the posttest. Besides, a more obvious late positive component (LPC) was observed when the high-IC participants switched from L1 to Lnew than the other way around, indicating their ability to inhibit cross-language interference. In contrast, the low-IC group exhibited asymmetrical switch costs, and no amplitude difference when switching between Lnew and L1 in the pretest. However, in the posttest, the switch costs pattern and the LPC results of the low-IC group became similar to those of the high-IC group. Innovation: The present study was a first attempt to provide electrophysiological evidence that IC ability plays an important role during L1–Lnew switching. Significance: These findings support the hypothesis that individuals’ IC ability plays a role of suppressing the non-target lexical access during language switching in the initial period of second language learning. The results also indicate that the relevant training in IC ability could contribute to the improvement of the language-switching efficiency in the initial period of language learning.

The effect of inhibitory control on general mathematics achievement and fraction comparison in middle school children

The effect of inhibitory control on general mathematics achievement and fraction comparison in middle school children

Executive attentional resources in timing: Effects of inhibitory control and cognitive aging.

This research is based on an executive resource theory of timing, which postulates that time perception relies on specialized attentional resources that support executive cognitive functions. In 4 experiments, older and younger participants performed a timing task and an executive task emphasizing inhibitory control under both single-task and dual-task conditions. The timing task in each experiment was serial temporal production. The executive tasks, representing different types of inhibitory control, were the flanker task (Experiment 1), the number-letter task (Experiment 2), the go/no-go task (Experiment 3), and the antisaccade task (Experiment 4). The results showed (a) a pattern of bidirectional interference in each experiment, in that the concurrent inhibition tasks interfered with timing performance and concurrent timing interfered with inhibition performance, (b) the older participants demonstrated a stronger bidirectional interference effect relative to younger participants in 3 experiments, and (c) weaker versions of the inhibition tasks produced weaker interference effects. These findings support the idea that temporal processing relies on executive attentional resources.

Effect of inhibitory control on problem solving in dogs

Effect of inhibitory control on problem solving in dogs

Varying task difficulty in the Go/Nogo task: The effects of inhibitory control, arousal, and perceived effort on ERP components

Similar to other executive functions, inhibitory control is thought to be a dynamic process that can be influenced by variations in task difficulty. However, little is known about how different task parameters alter inhibitory performance and processing as a task becomes more difficult. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of varying task difficulty, via manipulation of reaction time deadline (RTD), on measures of inhibitory control, perceived effort, and task-related arousal (indexed by skin conductance level). Sixty adults completed a visual Go/Nogo task (70% Go) after being randomly assigned to one of three task difficulty conditions: High, Medium and Low, with RTDs of 300, 500 or 1000ms, respectively. Results revealed incremental increases in Go/Nogo errors and greater perceived effort with increasing difficulty. No condition differences were found for arousal, but the amplitude of the Nogo N2 increased and peaked earlier with increasing task difficulty. In contrast, the Nogo P3 effect was reduced in the High condition compared to the Low and Medium conditions. Finally, the amplitude of N1 and P2 showed differential effects, with Nogo N1 increasing with task difficulty, while the Nogo P2 decreased. This study provides valuable baseline behavioural and ERP data for appropriately manipulating difficulty (via RTD) in Go/Nogo tasks — highlighting the potential key role of not only the N2 and P3, but also the N1 and P2 components for task performance.

Executive functions and aphasia treatment outcomes: Data from an ortho-phonological cueing therapy for anomia in Chinese

This study examined the existence of a possible relationship between anomic treatment outcomes and executive functions. An ortho-phonological cueing method was used to facilitate object naming in 12 Cantonese-speaking anomic individuals. Treatment effectiveness for each participant was quantified and correlated with the performance of executive functions and language tasks. It was found that 10 participants showed significant improvement in naming treated items. Eight of the participants were able to maintain treatment gains for at least 1 month. Phonological generalization effects were observed in two participants. Performance on the Test of Nonverbal Intelligence (TONI-3) was significantly correlated with effect sizes of treatment, treatment generalization and maintenance and the Attention Network Test (ANT) was significantly correlated with phonological generalization. The result of a simultaneous multiple regression suggested that the performance of the ANT played an important role in phonological generalization. The findings reinforce the current view about the role of executive functions in language rehabilitation. They also shed light on the effect of inhibitory control on treatment generalization.