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Objective: Unlike adults, children often fail to coordinate their behavior away from unnecessary cognitive demands to conserve effort. The present study investigated whether greater conflict monitoring may contribute to metacognitive monitoring of cognitive demands, which in turn may support greater cognitive demand avoidance with age. Method: Electroencephalogram data were recorded while 54 adults and fifty-four 5- to 10-year-old children completed a demand selection task, where they chose between versions of a task with either higher or lower demands on cognitive control. Results: Both adults and children avoided the high-demand task, showing that, in some circumstances, children as young as 5 years can avoid unnecessary cognitive demands. Critically, midfrontal theta power predicted awareness of cognitive demand variations, which in turn predicted demand avoidance. The relationship between midfrontal theta power and demand awareness was negative and did not change between age groups. Conclusion: Together, these findings suggest that metacognitive monitoring and control are based in part on conflict monitoring in both children and adults. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
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Objective: The present study intended to improve understanding of cognitive factors contributing to age-related differences in cognitive ability to shift between goal-directed (i.e., purposeful) and habitual (i.e., automatic) behavior. Method: Fifty participants, divided into two age groups (older: n = 25, Mage = 67.35, 15 female; younger: n = 25, Mage = 20.84, 18 female), were included. They completed behavioral measures of mood and well-being, as well as a cognitive battery of measures related to memory, reaction time, and speed of processing. Goal-directed and habitual responding was measured using the symmetrical outcome-revaluation task. Response window lengths were varied with overall longer response windows for older (800 ms short/1,100 ms long) compared to younger adults (500 ms short/800 ms long). Independent sample t tests, mixed analyses of variance, and analyses of covariance were used to compare age groups on behavioral and cognitive measures and the symmetrical outcome-revaluation task. Results: When given short response windows, both age groups displayed a reliance on habitual behavior over goal-directed responding. Interestingly, when provided longer response windows, younger adults were able to update responding to exercise goal-directed behavior and significantly improved their task performance compared to older adults who continued to rely on incorrect habitual responses. Working memory did not appear to be a significant driver of performance differences. Conclusions: These findings provide a better understanding of the balance between goal-directed and habitual behaviors in aging, suggesting that age-related slowing and memory changes do not fully account for older adults’ reliance on habitual responding and warrant further research into practical implications of addressing healthy behavioral change in older adults. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
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Objective: This study investigates the development of mental rotation skills in male and female youth from a longitudinal study at ages 9/10 (baseline), 11/12 (Year 2), and 13/14 (Year 4) using a relatively novel task, the Little Man Task. Method: The Little Man Task consists of four humanoid figures holding an object in either hand and rotated on two axes at 0° or 180°. Participants were prompted to indicate which of the figure’s hands (left or right) was holding the object. Overall task performance (accuracy and response time on correct trials) and performance for individual orientations were obtained. Youth (n = 4,157) were drawn from the population-based, demographically diverse sample of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study. Results: Conditional growth models for overall accuracy revealed main effects for age (representing the time variable) and sex. Effect sizes for sex effects were small and interactions between age and sex were not observed. There was a large main effect for orientation accompanied by small effect sizes for the interactions of orientation by age and orientation by sex. Exploratory descriptive data revealed that accuracy on the easiest orientation approximated asymptote at Year 4, whereas performance on the most difficult orientation remained relatively poor. Conclusions: Results demonstrate that rotational skills emerge early but are incompletely developed at midadolescence. Despite task characteristics optimized to detect sex differences, substantive differences were minimal. Further insight could be gained by incorporating an evaluation of evolving response strategies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
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Objective: Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is a genetic disorder marked by a range of clinical symptoms, including neurocognitive deficits, particularly in executive functions (EF), which are crucial for adaptive behavior. This study aimed to comprehensively evaluate core EF domains—such as inhibition, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and planning—in children with NF1 using the Child Executive Functions Battery (CEF-B). Additionally, it compared these findings with parent and teacher evaluations from the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) and examined the role of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Method: Sixty-four children with NF1, aged 7–16 years (M = 10.20, SD = 2.11), were recruited from a university hospital’s NF1 referral center between May 2013 and March 2016. The children completed the CEF-B, with results compared to normative data via t tests. Parents and teachers provided BRIEF assessments. Results: Significant EF deficits were observed across all CEF-B components, and both parents and teachers reported substantial EF difficulties. Cohen’s kappa indicated mild to moderate agreement between CEF-B and BRIEF scores (κ = −0.11–0.63). ADHD did not affect CEF-B performance, but children with ADHD were rated as having greater difficulties on the BRIEF than those without ADHD. Conclusions: NF1 significantly impairs EF across all domains in children, with most showing multiple concurrent EF impairments. These deficits appear to be partially independent of ADHD comorbidity. The CEF-B showed greater sensitivity than questionnaires in detecting EF deficits in NF1, but both performance-based assessments and real-world evaluations are necessary for a comprehensive understanding of these impairments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
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Objective: Adults with traumatic brain injury (TBI) often show deficits in recognition of facial emotion, but their ability to remember emotions is poorly understood. Furthermore, there are no practicable tasks that measure this ability. This study examined the construct of memory for emotions using a novel Facial Recognition and Memory for Emotion (FRAME) test. Method: Participants were 53 adults with complicated mild-to-severe TBI and a comparison group of 64 neurologically healthy adults. The FRAME and a neuropsychological battery were administered to participants. Analyses included zero-order and partial correlations, as well as group comparisons. A series of hierarchical logistic regressions evaluated the incremental utility of the FRAME in distinguishing adults with and without TBI. Results: Adults with TBI performed worse than healthy participants across FRAME indices. Processing speed was the strongest correlate of both emotion recognition and memory for emotion. The FRAME demonstrated a pattern of correlations with cognitive tests supporting convergent and discriminant validity of the concept that memory for emotion is distinct from the simple perception of it. Hierarchical logistic regression models showed that memory for emotion accounted for unique variance in group membership beyond emotion recognition accuracy, memory for nonemotional faces, and verbal delayed recall. Conclusions: Support was found for the construct validity of a novel performance-based assessment measure of recognition and memory for facial displays of emotion. We conclude that memory for facial emotions represents a unique aspect of social cognition, distinct from accurate recognition of facial emotions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
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Objective: Dyscognition is a frequently overlooked symptom in fibromyalgia (FM) that negatively impacts functioning and contributes to disability. Previous research has substantiated these complaints but lacks a comprehensive assessment battery to establish a neuropsychological profile. Further, the factors contributing to their genesis remain poorly understood. This study aimed to characterize the cognitive profile of FM participants compared to healthy controls using an inclusive battery of neuropsychological measures and to explore the contribution of pain, psychological, and clinical variables in explaining this profile among FM participants. Method: For this purpose, 33 FM participants and 32 age- and sex-matched healthy controls completed 17 cognitive tests measuring five broad domains. Participants also completed tests measuring pain sensitivity, endogenous pain modulation, and questionnaires on spontaneous pain severity, interference, and psychological and clinical characteristics. Results: Compared to controls, FM participants reported elevated levels of depression, anxiety, alexithymia, and pain catastrophizing, alongside lower sleep quality and quality of life. They also reported higher spontaneous pain severity and interference, demonstrated heightened sensitivity to evoked pain, and reduced pain modulation. Moreover, our analysis identified a distinct cognitive profile in FM participants, characterized by poorer performance in memory and executive function measures. Elevated spontaneous pain severity and poor sleep quality emerged as key predictors of this cognitive profile. Conclusions: The present study offers insights into the cognitive profile of FM and substantiates the factors involved in its development. These findings contribute to explaining the high prevalence of dyscognition in FM and suggest multiple treatment targets for addressing these symptoms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
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Thu, 20 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT