Understanding autonomous behaviour development: Exploring the developmental contributions of context-tracking and task selection to self-directed cognitive control.
Frick, Aurélien; Brandimonte, Maria A; Chevalier, Nicolas
cognitive control development; context-tracking; self-directed control; task selection; voluntary task-switching; Developmental and Educational Psychology; Cognitive Neuroscience
Abstract :
[en] Gaining autonomy is a key aspect of growing up and cognitive control development across childhood. However, little is known about how children engage cognitive control in an autonomous (or self-directed) fashion. Here, we propose that in order to successfully engage self-directed control, children identify, and achieve goals by tracking contextual information and using this information to select relevant tasks. To disentangle the respective contributions of these processes, we manipulated the difficulty of context-tracking via altering the presence or absence of contextual support (Study 1) and the difficulty of task selection by varying task difficulty (a)symmetry (Study 2) in 5-6 and 9-10-year-olds, and adults. Results suggested that, although both processes contribute to successful self-directed engagement of cognitive control, age-related progress mostly relates to context-tracking.
Disciplines :
Theoretical & cognitive psychology
Author, co-author :
Frick, Aurélien ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences cliniques ; Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK ; Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, Suor Orsola Benincasa University, Naples, Italy
Brandimonte, Maria A; Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, Suor Orsola Benincasa University, Naples, Italy
Chevalier, Nicolas; Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Language :
English
Title :
Understanding autonomous behaviour development: Exploring the developmental contributions of context-tracking and task selection to self-directed cognitive control.
We thank Helen Wright for proof‐reading the current paper and helpful comments made on previous versions of this paper. This research was funded by a doctoral scholarship from Suor Orsola Benincasa University and Research Grant Support from the University of Edinburgh awarded to Aurélien Frick.
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