Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T14:22:51.121Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Developmental relations between working memory and inhibitory control

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2006

CAROLINE RONCADIN ,
JUAN PASCUAL-LEONE ,
JILL B. RICH  and
MAUREEN DENNIS
CAROLINE RONCADIN
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Peel Children's Centre, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada Department of Pediatrics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
JUAN PASCUAL-LEONE
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
JILL B. RICH
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
MAUREEN DENNIS
Affiliation:
Brain and Behaviour Research, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Departments of Psychology and Surgery, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Working memory (WM) and inhibitory control (IC) are general-purpose resources that guide cognition and behavior. In this study, the developmental relations between WM and IC were investigated in 96 typically developing children aged 6 to 17 years in an experimental task paradigm using an efficiency metric that combined speed and accuracy performance. The ability to activate and process information in WM showed protracted age-related growth. Performance involving WM and IC together was empirically distinguishable from that involving WM alone. The results indicate that developmental improvements in WM are attributable to increased processing efficiency in activation, suppression, and strategic resource deployment, and that WM and IC are best studied in novel, complex situations that elicit competition among those resources (JINS, 2007, 13, 59–67.)

Keywords

MemoryInhibitionChild developmentPrefrontal cortexSpeed-accuracy tradeoff measurementCognitive science
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , January 2007 , pp. 59 - 67
Copyright
© 2007 The International Neuropsychological Society

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Awh, E., Smith, E.E., & Jonides, J. (1995). Human rehearsal processes and the frontal lobes: PET evidence. In J. Grafman, K. J. Holyoak, & F. Boller (Eds.), Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences: Vol. 769. Structure and functions of the human prefrontal cortex (pp. 97–117). New York: New York Academy of Sciences.
Band, G.P.H., van der Molen, M.W., Overtoom, C.C.E., & Verbaten, M.N. (2000). The ability to activate and inhibit speeded responses: Separate developmental trends. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 75, 263–290.Google Scholar
Bayliss, D.M., Jarrold, C., Baddeley, A.D., Gunn, D.M., & Leigh, E. (2005). Mapping the developmental constraints on working memory span performance. Developmental Psychology, 41, 579–597.Google Scholar
Bayliss, D.M., Jarrold, C., Gunn, D.M., & Baddeley, A.D. (2003). The complexities of complex span: Explaining individual differences in working memory in children and adults. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 132, 71–92.Google Scholar
Bjorklund, D.F. & Harnishfeger, K.K. (1990). The resources construct in cognitive development: Diverse sources of evidence and a theory of inefficient inhibition. Developmental Review, 10, 48–71.Google Scholar
Bunge, S.A., Ochsner, K.N., Desmond, J.E., Glover, G.H., & Gabrieli, J.D.E. (2001). Prefrontal regions involved in keeping information in and out of mind. Brain, 124, 2074–2086.Google Scholar
Cabeza, R., Mangels, J., Nyberg, L., Habib, R., Houle, S., McIntosh, A.R., & Tulving, E. (1997). Brain regions differentially involved in remembering what and when: A PET study. Neuron, 19, 864–870.Google Scholar
Case, R. (1987). The structure and process of intellectual development. International Journal of Psychology, 22, 571–607.Google Scholar
Case, R. (1995). Capacity-based explanations of working memory growth: A brief history and reevaluation. In F.E. Weinert & W. Schneider (Eds.), Memory performance and competencies: Issues in growth and development (pp. 23–44). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Conlin, J.A., Gathercole, S.E., & Adams, J.W. (2005). Children's working memory: Investigating performance limitations in complex span tasks. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 90, 303–317.Google Scholar
Constantinidis, C., Williams, G.V., & Goldman-Rakic, P.S. (2002). A role for inhibition in shaping the temporal flow of information in prefrontal cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 5, 175–180.Google Scholar
Cowan, N. (1997). The development of working memory. In N. Cowan (Ed.), The development of memory in childhood (pp. 163–199). Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
Cowan, N. (2001). The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 87–185.Google Scholar
Davidson, M.C., Amso, D., Anderson, L.C., & Diamond, A. (2006). Development of cognitive control and executive functions from 4 to 13 years: Evidence from manipulations of memory, inhibition, and task switching. Neuropsychologia, 44, 2037–2078.Google Scholar
Demetriou, A., Christou, C., Spanoudis, G., & Platsidou, M. (2002). The development of mental processing: Efficiency, working memory, and thinking. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 67(1), vii–154.Google Scholar
Dempster, F.N. (1993). Resistance to interference: Developmental changes in a basic processing mechanism. In M. L. Howe & R. Pasnak (Eds.), Emerging themes in cognitive development: Foundations (Vol. 1, pp. 3–27). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Diamond, A. (1990). Developmental time course in human infants and infant monkeys, and the neural bases of inhibitory control in reaching. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 608, 267–317.Google Scholar
Diamond, A. (2001). A model system for studying the role of dopamine in the prefrontal cortex during early development in humans: Early and continuously treated phenylketonuria. In C.A. Nelson & M. Luciana (Eds.), Handbook of developmental cognitive neuroscience (pp. 433–472). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Diamond, A. & Kirkham, N. (2005). Not quite as grown-up as we like to think: Parallels between cognition in childhood and adulthood. Psychological Science, 16, 291–297.Google Scholar
Diamond, A., O'Craven, K.M., & Savoy, R.L. (1998). Dorsolateral cortex contributions to working memory and inhibition as revealed by fMRI [Abstract]. Society for Neuroscience Abstracts, 24, 1252.Google Scholar
Engle, R.W., Conway, A.R.A., Tuholski, S.W., & Shisler, R.J. (1995). A resource account of inhibition. Psychological Science, 6, 122–125.Google Scholar
Espy, K.A., Kaufman, P.M., McDiarmid, M.D., & Glisky, M.L. (1999). Executive funtioning in preschool children: Performance on A-not-B and other delayed response format tasks. Brain and Cognition, 41, 178–199.Google Scholar
Gathercole, S.E., Pickering, S.J., Ambridge, B., & Wearing, H. (2004). The structure of working memory from 4 to 15 years of age. Developmental Psychology, 40, 177–190.Google Scholar
Gavens, N. & Barrouillet, P. (2004). Delays of retention, processing efficiency, and attentional resources in working memory span development. Journal of Memory and Language, 51, 644–657.Google Scholar
Gazzaley, A., Cooney, J.W., McEvoy, K., Knight, R.T., & D'Esposito, M. (2005). Top-down enhancement and suppression of the magnitude and speed of neural activity. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17, 507–517.Google Scholar
Gogtay, N., Geidd, J.N., Lusk, L., Hayashi, K.M., Greenstein, D., Vaituzis, A.C., Nugent III, T.F., Herman, D.H., Clasen, L.S., Toga, A.W., Rapoport, J.L., & Thompson, P.M. (2004). Dynamic mapping of human cortical development during childhood through early adulthood. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 101, 8174–8179.Google Scholar
Harnishfeger, K.K. & Bjorklund, D.F. (1993). The ontogeny of inhibition mechanisms: A renewed approach to cognitive development. In M.L. Howe & R. Pasnak (Eds.), Emerging themes in cognitive development: Foundations (Vol. 1, pp. 28–49). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Hasher, L. & Zacks, R.T. (1988). Working memory, comprehension, and aging: A review and a new view. In G. H. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation. Advances in research and theory (Vol. 22, pp. 193–225). New York: Academic Press.
Hasher, L., Zacks, R.T., & May, C.P. (1999). Inhibitory control, circadian arousal, and age. In D. Gopher & A. Koriat (Eds.), Attention and performance XVII: Cognitive regulation of performance: Interaction of theory and application (pp. 653–675). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Johnson, J., Im-Bolter, N., & Pascual-Leone, J. (2003). Development of mental attention in gifted and mainstream children: The role of mental capacity, inhibition, and speed of processing. Child Development, 74, 1594–1614.Google Scholar
Kane, M.J. & Engle, R.W. (2003). Working-memory capacity and the control of attention: The contributions of goal neglect, response competition, and task set to Stroop interference. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 132, 47–70.Google Scholar
Knight, R.T., Staines, W.R., Swick, D., & Chao, L.L. (1999). Prefrontal cortex regulates inhibition and excitation in distributed neural networks. Acta Psychologica, 101, 159–178.Google Scholar
Konishi, S., Nakajima, K., Uchida, I., Kikyo, H., Kameyama, M., & Miyashita, Y. (1999). Common inhibitory mechanism in human inferior prefrontal cortex revealed by event-related functional MRI. Brain, 122, 981–991.Google Scholar
Konishi, S., Uchida, I., Okuaki, T., Machida, T., Shirouza, I., & Miyashita, Y. (2002). Neural correlates of recency judgment. The Journal of Neuroscience, 22, 9549–9555.Google Scholar
Leon-Carrion, J., Garcia-Orza, J., & Perez-Santamaria, F.J. (2004). Development of the inhibitory component of the executive functions in children and adolescents. International Journal of Neuroscience, 114, 1291–1311.Google Scholar
Liu, X., Banich, M.T., Jacobson, B.L., & Tanabe, J.L. (2004). Common and distinct neural substrates of attentional control in an integrated Simon and spatial Stroop task assesed by event-related fMRI. NeuroImage, 22, 1097–1106.Google Scholar
Luciana, M. & Nelson, C.A. (1998). The functional emergence of prefrontally-guided working memory systems in four- to eight-year-old children. Neuropsychologia, 36, 273–293.Google Scholar
Manoach, D.A., Greve, D.N., Lindgren, K.A., & Dale, A.M. (2001). Isolating the neural basis of working memory components using fMRI. NeuroImage, 13, S708.Google Scholar
Marshuetz, C. (2005). Order information in working memory: An integrated review of evidence from brain and behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 131, 323–339.Google Scholar
Marshuetz, C., Smith, E.E., Jonides, J., DeGutis, J., & Chenevert, T.L. (2000). Order information in working memory: fMRI evidence for parietal and prefrontal mechanisms. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12 (Suppl. 2), 130–144.Google Scholar
Mecklinger, A., Weber, K., Gunter, T.C., & Engle, R.W. (2003). Dissociable brain mechanisms for inhibitory control: Effects of interference content and working memory capacity. Cognitive Brain Research, 18, 26–38.Google Scholar
Miyake, A. & Shah, P. (1999). Toward unified theories of working memory: Emerging general consensus, unresolved theoretical issues, and future research directions. In A. Miyake & P. Shah (Eds.), Models of working memory: Mechanisms of active maintenance and executive control (pp. 442–481). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Oberauer, K. & Kliegl, R. (2001). Beyond resources: Formal models of complexity effects and age differences in working memory. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 13, 187–215.Google Scholar
Pascual-Leone, J. (1984). Attentional, dialectic, and mental effort: Toward an organismic theory of life stages. In M. L. Commons, F. A. Richards, & C. Armon (Eds.), Beyond formal operations: Late adolescent and adult cognitive development (pp. 182–215). New York: Praeger.
Pascual-Leone, J. (1987). Organismic processes for neo-Piagetian theories: A dialectical causal account of cognitive development. International Journal of Psychology, 22, 531–570.Google Scholar
Pascual-Leone, J. (1995). Learning and development as dialectical factors in cognitive growth. Human Development, 38, 338–348.Google Scholar
Pascual-Leone, J. (2001). If the magical number is 4, how does one account for operations within working memory? Brain and Behavioral Sciences, 24, 136–138.Google Scholar
Richardson, J.T.E. (1996). Evolving issues in working memory. In J. T. E. Richardson, R. W. Engle, L. Hasher, R. H. Logie, E. R. Stoltzfus, & R. T. Zacks (Eds.), Working memory and human cognition (pp. 120–154). New York: Oxford University Press.
Roberts, R.J., Jr., Hager, L.D., & Heron, C. (1994). Prefrontal cognitive processes: Working memory and inhibition in an antisaccade task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123, 374–393.Google Scholar
Schneider, W., Gruber, H., Gold, A., & Opwis, K. (1993). Chess expertise and memory for chess positions in children and adults. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 56, 328–349.Google Scholar
Simon, J.R. & Berbaum, K. (1990). Effect of conflicting cues on information processing: The ‘Stroop effect’ vs. the “Simon effect.” Acta Psychologica, 73, 159–170.Google Scholar
Slotnick, S.D., Moo, L.R., Segal, J.B., & Hart, J., Jr. (2003). Distinct prefrontal cortex activity associated with item memory and source memory for visual shapes. Cognitive Brain Research, 17, 75–82.Google Scholar
Smith, M.E., McEvoy, L.K., & Gevins, A. (1999). Neurophysiological indices of strategy development and skill acquisition. Cognitive Brain Research, 7, 389–404.Google Scholar
Swanson, H.L. (1999). What develops in working memory? A life span perspective. Developmental Psychology, 35, 986–1000.Google Scholar
Tipper, S.P., Bourque, T.A., Anderson, S.H., & Brehaut, J.C. (1989). Mechanisms of attention: A developmental study. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 48, 353–378.Google Scholar
Umilta, C. (1994). The Simon effect: Introductory remarks. Psychological Research, 56, 127–129.Google Scholar
Vogel, E.K., McCollough, A.W., & Machizawa, M.G. (2005). Neural measures reveal individual differences in controlling access to working memory. Nature, 438, 500–503.Google Scholar
Wechsler, D. (1999). Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.
Wilson, S.P., Kipp, K., & Daniels, J. (2003). Task demands and age-related differences in retrieval and response inhibition. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 21, 599–613.Google Scholar