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Philip David Zelazo

Publications and source records attributed to Philip David Zelazo.

17 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Neurophysiological correlates of emotion regulation in children and adolescents.

Psychologists consider emotion regulation a critical developmental acquisition. Yet, there has been very little research on the neural underpinnings of emotion regulation across childhood and adolescence. We selected two ERP components associated with inhibitory control-the frontal N2 and frontal P3. We recorded these components before, during, and after a negative emotion induction, and compared their amplitude, latency, and source localization over age. Fifty-eight children 5-16 years of age engaged in a simple go/no-go procedure in which points for successful performance earned a valued prize. The temporary loss of all points triggered negative emotions, as confirmed by self-report scales. Both the frontal N2 and frontal P3 decreased in amplitude and latency with age, consistent with the hypothesis of increasing cortical efficiency. Amplitudes were also greater following the emotion induction, only for adolescents for the N2 but across the age span for the frontal P3, suggesting different but overlapping profiles of emotion-related control mechanisms. No-go N2 amplitudes were greater than go N2 amplitudes following the emotion induction at all ages, suggesting a consistent effect of negative emotion on mechanisms of response inhibition. No-go P3 amplitudes were also greater than go P3 amplitudes and they decreased with age, whereas go P3 amplitudes remained low. Finally, source modeling indicated a developmental decline in central-posterior midline activity paralleled by increasing activity in frontal midline regions suggestive of the anterior cingulate cortex. Negative emotion induction corresponded with an additional right ventral prefrontal or temporal generator beginning in middle childhood.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Neural correlates of cognitive control in childhood and adolescence: disentangling the contributions of age and executive function.

Dense-array (128-channel) electroencephalography (EEG) was used to record event-related potentials (ERPs) from 33 participants between 7 and 16 years of age while they performed a Go/Nogo task. The frontal (Nogo) N2 component of the ERP was taken as an index of cognitive control, and examined in relation to both age and independent assessments of executive function (EF), including the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), the Stroop task, a delay discounting task, and backward digit span. Better performance on the IGT and the Stroop task was associated with smaller N2 amplitudes, over and above effects of age. N2 latencies decreased with age but were not predicted by EF. Source modeling of the N2 revealed neural generators in areas suggestive of cingulate cortex and orbitofrontal cortex, and the locations of these generators varied systematically with EF (IGT and Stroop task): the cingulate generator was more anterior for good EF participants at all ages; the orbitofrontal generator was relatively left lateralized for younger and for poorer EF participants. Taken together, these findings suggest that age-related decreases in N2 amplitude, but not N2 latency, reflect the development of cognitive control and cannot be attributed solely to incidental changes that may affect assessments of the N2 (e.g., increases in skull thickness). Functionally relevant decreases in N2 amplitude may reflect changes in the regions of cortex giving rise to the N2.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Attitudes to the right- and left: frontal ERP asymmetries associated with stimulus valence and processing goals.

We used dense-array event-related potentials (ERP) to examine the time course and neural bases of evaluative processing. Participants made good vs. bad (evaluative) and abstract vs. concrete (nonevaluative) judgments of socially relevant concepts (e.g., "murder," "welfare"), and then rated all concepts for goodness and badness. Results revealed a late positive potential (LPP) beginning at about 475 ms post-stimulus and maximal over anterior sites. The LPP was lateralized (higher amplitude and shorter latency) on the right for concepts later rated bad, and on the left for concepts later rated good. Moreover, the degree of lateralization for the amplitude but not the latency was larger when participants were making evaluative judgments than when they were making nonevaluative judgments. These data are consistent with a model in which discrete regions of prefrontal cortex (PFC) are specialized for the evaluative processing of positive and negative stimuli.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Development of affective decision making for self and other: evidence for the integration of first- and third-person perspectives.

The role of perspective taking in affective decision making was studied in children at two ages (3 and 4 years) using a delay-of-gratification paradigm in which children chose between an immediate reward of lower value and a delayed reward of higher value. Half the children chose for themselves (self condition), and half chose for the experimenter (other condition). Three-year-olds chose delayed rewards in the other condition but made impulsive choices in the self condition. Compared with 3-year-olds, 4-year-olds performed better in the self condition and worse in the other condition. Results suggest that 3-year-olds took either a subjective, first-person perspective (for self) or an objective, third-person perspective (for other). Four-year-olds integrated these perspectives, considering a third-person perspective in the self condition and the experimenter's subjective perspective in the other condition (i.e., her desire for immediate gratification). This integration allowed reason to be tempered by emotion, and vice versa.

Affect↗
PubMed2005

Assessment of hot and cool executive function in young children: age-related changes and individual differences.

Although executive function (EF) is often considered a domain-general cognitive function, a distinction has been made between the "cool" cognitive aspects of EF more associated with dorsolateral regions of prefrontal cortex and the "hot" affective aspects more associated with ventral and medial regions (Zelazo and Mller, 2002). Assessments of EF in children have focused almost exclusively on cool EF. In this study, EF was assessed in 3- to 5-year-old children using 2 putative measures of cool EF (Self-Ordered Pointing and Dimensional Change Card Sort) and 2 putative measures of hot EF (Children's Gambling Task and Delay of Gratification). Findings confirmed that performance on both types of task develops during the preschool period. However, the measures of hot and cool EF showed different patterns of relations with each other and with measures of general intellectual function and temperament. These differences provide preliminary evidence that hot and cool EF are indeed distinct, and they encourage further research on the development of hot EF.

Age Factors↗
PubMed2004

Development of orbitofrontal function: current themes and future directions.

In recent years, an exciting thrust in the developmental research literature has been the focus on "executive" functions (EF). However, the emphasis has been on the more purely cognitive aspects of EF operative in abstract reasoning and problem solving-aspects associated mainly with dorsolateral frontal regions. Although the literature on adult neuropsychology has seen an emerging and growing interest in the study of processes more related to orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), including emotion and personality, research on the development of EF has lagged behind. This special issue of Brain and Cognition is intended to redress this imbalance by bringing together researchers who are studying the nature and development of orbitofrontal function from a wide variety of perspectives.

Affect↗
PubMed2004

The development of conscious control in childhood.

Developmental data suggest that the growth of executive function in childhood can be understood in terms of the development of consciousness. According to the "levels of consciousness" (LOC) model, there are age-related increases in the highest degree of self-reflection or LOC that children are able to muster in response to situational demands. These increases in LOC with age have consequences for the quality of experience, the potential for recall, the complexity of children's explicit knowledge structures, and the possibility of the conscious control of thought, emotion, and action. The hierarchical LOCs identified by this analysis are also useful for understanding the complex structure of conscious experience in adults, and they provide a metric for measuring the level at which consciousness is operating in specific situations.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Resistance to extinction: a measure of orbitofrontal function suitable for children?

Extinction of operantly conditioned responses, which provides a measure of the ability to adapt to changes in the reinforcement value of stimuli, has been linked to orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in human and non-human animals. This article examines the feasibility of using extinction as a measure of the development of OFC function in preschool-age children. If extinction serves as a measure of OFC function, resistance to extinction should decrease during this age range. In Part 1, we review the literature on extinction as related to OFC, and summarize what is known regarding age-related changes in extinction in young children. In Part 2, we report results of a study assessing extinction in children between 3 and 6 years of age. Results revealed age-related increases in responding during extinction, with girls (particularly, 6-year-old girls) exhibiting stronger resistance to extinction. Some relations were found with temperament and normative compulsive-like behavior. The findings of this study question the utility of extinction of operant responding as a measure of OFC function in young children.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2004

Development of "hot" executive function: the children's gambling task.

Development of affective decision-making was studied in 48 children at two ages (3 and 4 years) using a simplified version of the Iowa Gambling Task (). On each of 50 trials, children chose from 1 of 2 decks of cards that, when turned, displayed happy and sad faces, corresponding to rewards (candies) won and lost, respectively. Cards in 1 deck offered more rewards per trial, but were disadvantageous across trials due to occasional large losses; cards in the other deck offered fewer rewards per trial, but were advantageous overall. On later trials, 4-year-olds made more advantageous choices than 3-year-olds, and 4-year-olds made more advantageous choices than would be expected by chance, whereas 3-year-olds made more disadvantageous choices than would be expected by chance. These findings, which were especially pronounced for girls, indicate that affective decision-making develops rapidly during the preschool period, possibly reflecting the growth of neural systems involving orbitofrontal cortex.

Affect↗
PubMed2003

The development of executive function in early childhood.

According to the Cognitive Complexity and Control (CCC) theory, the development of executive function can be understood in terms of age-related increases in the maximum complexity of the rules children can formulate and use when solving problems. This Monograph describes four studies (9 experiments) designed to test hypotheses derived from the CCC theory and from alternative theoretical perspectives on the development of executive function (memory accounts, inhibition accounts, and redescription accounts). Each study employed a version of the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS), in which children are required first to sort cards by one pair of rules (e.g., color rules: "If red then here, if blue then there"), and then sort the same cards by another, incompatible pair of rules (e.g., shape rules). Study 1 found that although most 3- to 4-year-olds failed the standard version of this task (i.e., they perseverated on the preswitch rules during the postswitch phase), they usually performed well when they were required to use four rules (including bidimensional rules) and those rules were not in conflict (i.e., they did not require children to respond in two different ways to the same test card). These findings indicate that children's perseveration cannot be attributed in a straightforward fashion to limitations in children's memory capacity. Study 2 examined the circumstances in which children can use conflicting rules. Three experiments demonstrated effects of rule dimensionality (uni- vs. bidimensional rules) but no effects of stimulus characteristics (1 vs. 2 test cards; spatially integrated vs. separated stimuli). Taken together, these studies suggest that conflict among rules is a key determinant of difficulty, but that conflict interacts with dimensionality. Study 3 examined what types of conflict pose problems for 3- to 4-year-olds by comparing performance on standard, Partial Change, and Total Change versions of the DCCS. Results revealed effects of conflict at the level of specific rules (e.g., "If red, then there"), rather than specific stimulus configurations or dimensions per se, indicating that activation of the preswitch rules persists into the postswitch phase. Study 4 examined whether negative priming also contributes to difficulty on the DCCS. Two experiments suggested that the active selection of preswitch rules against a competing alternative results in the lasting suppression of the alternative. Taken together, the results of these studies provide the basis for a revision of the CCC theory (CCC-r) that specifies more clearly the circumstances in which children will have difficulty using rules at various levels of complexity, provides a more detailed account of how to determine the complexity of rules required in a task, takes account of both the activation and inhibition of rules as a function of experience, and highlights the importance of taking intentionality seriously in the study of executive function.

Attention↗
PubMed2002

The balance beam in the balance: reflections on rules, relational complexity, and developmental processes.

The lead articles by Jansen and van der Maas (2002, this issue) and Halford, Andrews, Dalton, Boag, and Zielinski (2002, this issue) raise numerous questions concerning the development of rule use and how best to assess it. In this Reflection, we focus on the following: (a) When can one infer the use of a rule? (b) What are the mechanisms underlying the development of rule use? and (c) What is the relation between understanding and execution? In addressing these questions, we contrast relational complexity theory with cognitive complexity and control (CCC) theory.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Executive function across the life span.

The development and determinants of executive function (EF) were studied in children (mean age=8.8 years), young adults ( M= 22.3 years), and elderly adults (M = 71.1 years). EF was indexed by perseverative responding on two bidimensional sorting tasks (Visually Cued Color-Shape task and Auditorily Cued Number-Numeral task), and age-related changes in EF were considered in relation to estimates of conscious vs. unconscious memory that were obtained using the process dissociation procedure (PDP). Results revealed the rise and fall of EF across the life span, with significant quadratic trends found for performance on both sorting tasks and for the conscious recollection component (C) of the PDP task. Regression analyses indicated that PDP estimates of conscious memory accounted for variation in performance on the visual sorting task, but not on the auditory sorting task. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for hierarchical models of EF and its development.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Sources of inflexibility in 6-year-olds' understanding of emotion in speech.

When utterances contain conflicting emotion cues, 6-year-olds judge emotion from content, even when instructed to judge emotion from paralanguage (Morton & Trehub, 2001). Two experiments examined the nature of this bias. In Experiment 1, priming paralanguage reversed 6-year-olds' normal bias to content. In Experiment 2, 6-year-olds were instructed to listen to paralanguage under various conditions. Children were more likely to follow instructions delivered with feedback than instructions delivered alone. Children who described conflicts between content and paralanguage were more likely to follow instructions than children who did not describe these conflicts. Results suggest that 6-year-olds can judge emotion from paralanguage in the presence of competing content but often remain focused on content because of the way they represent the instructions.

Child↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Interference control in a new rule use task: age-related changes, labeling, and attention.

Three experiments examined 3- to 6-year-olds' interference control using a task in which children saw 2 corresponding sets of colored cards, a large set in front of them and a small set behind them. A colored candy (Smartie) was placed on a large card with mismatching color, and children could win the Smartie by selecting the small card that matched the color of the large card. Three-year-olds performed poorly whereas older children performed well. Having children label the correct color before responding improved 3-year-olds' performance (Experiment 2), as did pointing to the large card (Experiment 3); decreasing the affective salience of the stimuli (colored beads vs. Smarties) did not (Experiment 3). Results reveal the role of selective attention in action control.

Attention↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The role of negative priming in preschoolers' flexible rule use on the dimensional change card sort task.

Four experiments examined the development of negative priming (NP) in 3-5-year-old children using as a measure of children's executive function (EF) the dimensional change card sort (DCCS) task. In the NP version of the DCCS, the values of the sorting dimension that is relevant during the preswitch phase are removed during the postswitch phase. The experiments showed that the NP effect observed in the DCCS decreased during the preschool years, and they clarified the circumstances in which NP occurs. Taken together, the findings suggest that the development of EF in early childhood consists in part in disinhibiting attention to information that has previously been suppressed.

Affect↗