Child Neuropsychology, 2015 Vol. 21, No. 3, 302–313, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09297049.2014.913558
Temperament and negative semantic priming in children 7 to 12 years old Carmen Noguera, Dolores Álvarez, Encarna Carmona, and Laura Parra Department of Psychology, University of Almería, Almería, Spain The present research assessed whether children with high and low scores on temperament traits differed in their ability to inhibit irrelevant task information in a lexical decision task. Children from 7 to 12 years old were classified based on temperament dimensions measured using a version of the Temperament in Middle Childhood Questionnaire. The participants were instructed to either attend to (and remember) or to ignore a masked prime word followed by a central probe target on which they made a lexical decision. The results revealed several notable outcomes. First of all, recognition memory was better for attended than ignored words, providing further evidence that attention instructions influenced the processing of the primes. Secondly, although no negative priming effect was obtained in the “ignore” condition, 43% of children showed this effect. Thirdly, children scoring high on Inhibitory Control and Impulsivity showed ignored negative priming, whereas children scoring high on Inhibitory Control and low on Impulsivity ignored facilitation. Data are discussed within the framework of negative priming as a complex phenomenon that involves the interaction of different factors such as age, type of task, and certain temperament traits. Keywords: Temperament; Childhood; Control processes; Negative semantic priming.
One of the behavioral control and regulation processes that contributes to an effective global executive function is the ability to inhibit irrelevant information in the task at hand. In this way, the control function facilitates the processing and the response to essential information to the detriment of distractor information. To the extent that the effect of negative priming (NP) is considered as a direct index of selective control mechanisms in the processing of activated but irrelevant information, the absence of NP may be indicative of an “alteration” in the ability to select information This research was supported by a Grant PSI2009-12684 given to the first author by the Ministry of Education and Culture (Spain). The Temperament in Middle Childhood Questionnaire has been translated into Spanish by the Group of research on Attention, within the framework of the project Cognition and Education (CSD2008-00048), with the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Culture (ConsoliderIngenio Program, 2010). Finally, the authors would like to thank the children, teachers, parents, and principals of the two schools taking part in this research, Padre Méndez and Adela Díaz from Almería (Spain), for their participation and cooperation. Address correspondence to Carmen Noguera, Departamento de Psicología, Universidad de Almería, 04120 Almería, Spain. E-mail: [email protected]
© 2014 Taylor & Francis
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relevant to the task in the presence of distractor information. The effect of NP has traditionally been explored in selective attention tasks in which two consecutive trials are presented: a prime trial and a probe trial. Each of them contains both a distractor stimulus and a target stimulus, to which the participants must respond while simultaneously ignoring the distractor stimulus. Under the ignored repetition condition in which the distractor stimulus is subsequently presented as the target, an increase in the reaction time is observed with respect to the condition in which stimuli are not repeated. This increase in response latency is known as negative priming (for a review and integration of conflicting accounts, see Tipper, 2001). There are currently various versions of this procedure in which NP has been observed not only in the absence of a prime distractor stimulus (Frings & Wentura, 2005; Healy & Burt, 2003; Milliken, Joordens, Merikle, & Seiffert, 1998; Noguera, Ortells, Abad, Carmona, & Daza, 2007) but also in the absence of a distractor stimulus on the probe trial in binary tasks such as lexical decision or semantic categorization (Abad, Noguera, & Ortells, 2003; Noguera et al., 2007). Moreover, the findings of several studies suggest that manipulations affecting the processing of the prime stimulus, such as attentional instructions on how to process such stimulus or the presentation time, may be even more influential than the presence of distractors on the probe display to obtain NP (Milliken et al., 1998; Noguera et al., 2007). The NP procedure has been used to examine the development of inhibitory control processes in child populations. The ability to show this effect appears to depend not only on the age but also on task demands. For instance, Simone and McCormick (1999) suggested that the location-based NP, but not the identity-based NP, is intact in childhood. Pritchard and Neumann (2004, 2009, see also Frings, Feix, Röthig, Brüser, & Junge, 2007) observed NP in children between 5 and 12 years old in a task with no spatial features. Tipper and colleagues did not observe NP in a Stroop-variant task in children between 7 and 8 years old; therefore, the authors concluded that selective control mechanisms were not fully developed until puberty (Tipper, Bourque, Anderson, & Brehaut, 1989). Additional research using the day-night Stroop-like task showed strong evidence for the development of such mechanisms in later childhood (Gerstadt, Hong, & Diamond, 1994; Simpson & Riggs, 2005). There is some controversy regarding the age at which efficient inhibitory control, measured by the observation of NP, begins and becomes established because it also appears to depend on the type of task. However, information provided by various studies on the percentage of children exhibiting NP within selected samples may reflect the presence of different behavioral patterns rather than an incapacity (or lack of maturity) to inhibit irrelevant information. Tipper et al. (1989) pointed out that 70% of children produced NP under the ignored repetition pictures condition (Experiment 3). However, no significant interference or NP effects were observed in these children. In the study of Frings et al. (2007), children were instructed to name the colors of the central blobs while ignoring the outer ones, and only 57% of children from 6 to 11 years old showed significant NP for ignored repetition cards. In additional research, Pritchard and Neumann (2009) asked participants to name the print color of Stroop items (Experiment 1) as well as the color of a central blob flanked by two other blobs (Experiment 2). In general, the average percentages of three age groups between 5 and 12 exhibiting NP were 64%, 76%, and 78% in Experiment 1 and 80%, 72%, and 82% in Experiment 2, respectively.
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Examining these data, one might ask why, within the same development stage and when encountering the same task, only certain participants displayed NP. As noted above, the absence of NP in children does not necessarily imply that their selective control mechanisms are not efficient at inhibiting irrelevant information. The interaction of other factors in addition to the development stage and type of task may explain the variability observed. We propose that one of these factors may be related to individual differences in temperament traits linked to various forms of attentional control. Temperament has been conceptualized as individual differences in reactivity and self-auto regulation, which are constitutionally based and influenced through time by heredity, maturation, and experience (Rothbart & Derryberry, 1981). The concept of reactivity refers to responsiveness of emotional, activation, and arousal systems, whereas the self-auto regulation includes processes such as approach, avoidance, and attention that modulate the reactivity of a person (Rothbart, 1989). The results of some studies suggest the importance of considering the temperament traits. For example, González and colleagues classified a group of 7-year-old children according to their temperament traits, measured by means of the Child Behavior Questionnaire. Those who scored high in activity level and impulsivity but low in inhibitory control exhibited a greater Stroop-type interference effect, suggesting less ability to suppress prepotent behaviors when acting according to instructions. However, children who scored high in anger, discomfort, sadness, and approach-anticipation exhibited a greater flank interference effect, that is, greater difficulty in filtering nonrelevant information than children with a low score (González, Fuentes, Carranza, & Estévez, 2001). Additional research suggests that the tendency to exhibit a low distress and impulsivity level accompanied by high capacity for adaptation and inhibitory control is related to a better attentional function (Gerardi, Rothbart, Posner, & Kepler, 1996). In this context, attention would imply a multicomponent mechanism exercising control over cognitive operations and emotional responses (Posner & Rothbart, 1998). Therefore, the objective of the present study was twofold. First of all, this study aimed to discover, using the NP procedure developed by Noguera et al. (2007), what percentage of children aged from 7 to 12 years are able to exhibit NP. In their study, Noguera and colleagues utilized a lexical decision task to explore negative semantic priming from prime words by manipulating attentional instructions and prime durations in adults. For instance, if participants saw “YES” printed in green before the prime display onset, they should attend to and remember the following prime word. On the contrary, if they saw “NO” printed in red they should then ignore it as if it were a distractor that would disrupt their memory for the attended words. This prime word could be either associatively and categorically related to the upcoming target or unrelated. An opposite negative priming effect was obtained from ignored primes briefly presented and masked to that produced from attended primes. Secondly, the study aimed to explore how temperament traits, measured by a version of the Temperament in Middle Childhood Questionnaire (TMCQ; Simonds & Rothbart, 2004), may help to explain a possible differential pattern of priming.
METHOD Participants A total of 49 children from 7 to 12 years took part in this study. A written consent to undertake this research was given by their parents, as well as the principal of the Spanish
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schools Padre Méndez and Adela Díaz, the tutor of each grade, and the Department of Education of the Regional government of Andalucía. Children evidencing reading or learning problems during the practices were excluded. All participants were instructed to perform a lexical decision task before completing a recognition task. In the results section, they were divided into two groups: 26 seven- to 9-year-olds (M = 8.5, Group 1) and 23 ten- to 12-year-olds (M = 10.7, Group 2); the reason for this distribution was to determine whether older children performed better on a recognition task than younger children because of improvements in working memory capacity across age groups.
Instruments Priming Procedure and Recognition Task. The stimuli and the procedure were adopted from Noguera and colleagues (2007, Experiment 4). All stimuli were presented on a computer screen. Each trial consisted of a sequence of eight critical displays (see Figure 1). The fixation display consisting of a white asterisk (*) presented at the center of the screen on a dark grey background. The instruction display consisted of either the word “YES” printed in green or the word “NO” printed in red and presented just above fixation. Both the prime and the probe displays consisted of a single uppercase letter string (4, 5, or 6 letters) presented at the center of the screen (foveal location). The prime word was followed by a masking pattern consisting of a series of ampersands (&&&&&&) at the center of the screen (the mask display). The children were asked to respond by pressing either the “m” or the “c” keys whether the target or probe stimulus was a meaningful word or, on the contrary, it was a nonword. Mappings of word/nonword decisions and the correct key (“m” or “c”) were counterbalanced across participants. A total of 64 (16 per category) concrete and familiar nouns from four to six letters belonging to four different semantic categories (geographical features and atmospheric phenomena, foods, animals, and body parts) were selected from the norms published by Soto, Sebastián, García, and Del Amo (1982). A set of 64 additional words (16 from each category) from four to six letters was selected, changing one letter from each word in order to produce an orthographically regular pronounceable nonword. When prime and
Figure 1 Example of the temporal sequence of events (used by Noguera et al., 2007, Experiment 4) when the target is a “word” presented for the instruction of attending and remembering (“YES” printed in green) the prime word.
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probe words were related, they belonged to the same semantic category and were highly associated. Children were informed that after completing the experiment, they would carry out a recognition task about the previously attended words. Although participants were told that there only was one recognition test, two tests were actually presented, one about the attended and the other about the ignored ones. They had to classify each word as “new” or “old” depending on whether or not the word appeared throughout the experiment. A total of 24 words were presented: 12 “old” words presented as either attended or ignored words on the prime display, and 12 “new” items (not previously presented) belonging to the same four semantic categories mentioned above. Each participant received a different random ordering of the old and new items. Prior to the experimental trials, each child completed one practice phase that consisted of two brief blocks: one block of eight trials to decide whether the probe stimulus was a word or a nonword and an additional block of 12 trials to practice with the attention instructions. Children were requested to name the prime word preceded by a “YES” and to remain silent when a “NO” preceded the prime word. Children did not memorize the attended words and only read them aloud in this phase. The experimental block consisted of 144 trials (96 words and 48 nonwords) distributed in two blocks of 72 trials, which were separated by a short break. Half of the trials were “attend to and remember” and half were “ignore.” Within each of these conditions, half of the probe words were related to the preceding prime words and the remaining half of the words were unrelated. Measurement of Children’s Temperament A version of the Temperament in Middle Childhood Questionnaire (TMCQ; Simonds & Rothbart, 2004), which was translated into Spanish by a group of researcher in attention (CO-EDUCA Program: CSD2008-00048), was used to measure children’s temperament. This questionnaire provides caregivers’ responses to 158 items describing their children’s behavior in a variety of everyday life situations on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from “almost always false” to ”almost always true.” The TMCQ assesses the following 17 dimensions of temperament: Activation Control, Activity Level, Affiliation, Anger/Frustration, Assertiveness/Dominance, Attentional Focusing, Discomfort, Fantasy/ Openness, Fear, High-Intensity Pleasure, Impulsivity, Inhibitory Control, Low-Intensity Pleasure, Perceptual Sensitivity, Sadness, Shyness, and Soothability/Falling Reactivity. Although this version is not yet published, the internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) values for the subscales ranged from .70 to .89. The TMCQ was explained to the parents via a letter and by means of a personal interview. For those who could not be present at the interview, all the information was facilitated to them by telephone. The parents filled out the questionnaires at home within a 3-week interval after the accomplishment of the cognitive task by their children. RESULTS General Priming Effects In a 2 (Instructions: attend to vs. ignore) × 2 (prime-probe Relatedness: related vs. unrelated) analysis of variance (ANOVA) with reaction times as the dependent variable, the
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main effects for Instructions and Relatedness were significant, F(1, 48) = 4.32, p = .043; and F(1, 48) = 9.0,p = .004, respectively. The responses were faster in the ignored (789 ms) and related (792 ms) conditions than in the attended (831 ms) and unrelated (829 ms) conditions. There was an Instructions × Relatedness interaction, F(1, 48) = 9.03, p = .0042. Planned comparisons revealed a positive priming of +70 ms from the attended words, F(1, 48) = 16.56, p < .001 and a reduced priming effect of +3 ms from the ignored words (p > .05). Although no NP overall effect was obtained, 43% of children produced the effect. The percentage of children that showed NP was 38% for 7- to 9-year-olds and 48% for 10to 12-year-olds. Low error rates (no condition was above a 5% error rate) were also submitted to analysis but no main effects or interactions were significant (all ps > .40).
Relations Between Temperament Dimensions and Priming Effects The children were also split into two groups according to the median value in each temperament dimension. The participants scoring below or above the median were categorized as low or high on each temperament dimension, respectively. Mixed 2 × 2 ANOVAs with ignored priming sign (positive vs. negative) and temperament scores (low vs. high) as the between-subjects factors were conducted for each temperament dimension on the latency and accuracy measures. Firstly, reaction time analyses showed main effects of the Activation Control, F(1, 47) = 5.18, p = .027, and the Impulsivity, F(1, 47) = 7.22, p = .009, dimensions. Children scoring high on Activation Control responded faster (744 ms) than those with low scores (881 ms), whereas children scoring high on Impulsivity responded slower (892 ms) than those with low scores (733 ms) on the Impulsivity trait. The Instructions × Inhibitory Control interaction was significant, F(1, 47) = 6.98, p = .011, because the participants with high Inhibitory Control invested more time in the “attend to and remember” (847 ms) than in the “ignore” condition (753 ms), whereas those children with low Inhibitory Control did not show differences in both conditions (818 ms vs. 825 ms, respectively). Secondly, different patterns of performance were observed for children with negative priming versus positive priming in the “ignore” condition on Activity Level and HighIntensity Pleasure dimensions. Table 1 shows the priming effect in the “ignore” condition as a function of high and low scores on these two dimensions. The group with ignored NP showed a Relatedness × Activity Level interaction, F(1, 19) = 9.40, p = .006, because more Table 1 Priming Effect (in ms) in the “Ignore” Condition as a Function of Scores in Temperament Dimensions. Negative
Positive
Ignored priming sign
High
Low
High
Low
Temperament dimensions Activity Level High Intensity Pleasure
− 151 − 141
− 68* − 74*
+ 74 + 80
+ 87 + 80
Notes. High = score above the median; Low = score below the median. *High-Low differences were significant, p < .05.
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NP was observed in children with high scores that in those with low scores. However, there were no significant differences between high- and low-Activity Level in children who exhibited ignored positive priming. For the ignored NP group, there was also a significant Relatedness × High Intensity Pleasure interaction, F(1, 19) = 5.17, p = .034, showing a greater NP in children with high scores than in those with low scores. The ignored positive priming group did not show significant differences between high and low scores, F < 1. In addition, for the group with ignored NP, the main effects of the Low-Intensity Pleasure and the High-Intensity Pleasure dimensions were also significant, F(1, 19) = 5.30, p = .032 and F(1, 19) = 4.04, p = .05, respectively, because the responses of those children with high scores on the Low-Intensity Pleasure were faster (713 ms) than those with low scores (925 ms). On the contrary, children with low scores on the High-Intensity Pleasure responded faster (749 ms) than those with high scores (945 ms). The group with ignored positive priming did not differ in priming magnitude, F < 1. Finally, only those children that showed ignored positive priming and scored low on the Fantasy/Openness (685 ms) and Fear (703 ms) dimensions, exhibited latencies faster than those with high scores (870 ms vs. 859 ms), F(1, 26) = 7.51, p = .01 and F(1, 26) = 4.81, p = .037, respectively. The group with ignored NP did not show differences between low and high scores on these traits, F < 1. Thirdly, when the scores on Impulsivity and Inhibitory Control were jointly considered, an interesting additional pattern of results was obtained because both dimensions interacted with Instructions and Relatedness, F(1, 45) = 8.14, p = .0065. Table 2 shows the pattern of attended and ignored priming for children who scored high or low on the Impulsivity and Inhibitory Control dimensions. The participants with high scores on both temperament traits showed positive priming from attended prime words and negative priming from ignored primes. And fourthly, the error data analyses showed a main effect of the Discomfort dimension, F(1, 47) = 8.94, p = .0044, indicating a greater percentage of error in children with high scores (6%) than in those with low scores (2%). The Instructions × Activity Level interaction was significant, F(1, 47) = 3.94, p = .05, because the participants who scored high on this trait made fewer errors in the “attend to and remember” (4%) than in the “ignore” (5%) condition. However, the participants who scored low on the Activity
Table 2 Magnitude and Sign (Positive vs. Negative) of Priming Effect (in ms) for Each Paired Combination of Temperament Traits (Impulsivity and Inhibitory Control) as a Function of Attentional Instructions (Attend to and Remember vs. Ignore the Prime Word). Attentional Instructions Paired Combinations HIIC LIIC LIHIC HILIC
Attend to and remember
Ignore
+ 199 −9 + 83 + 50
− 122 − 34 + 29 + 21
Notes. HIIC = High Impulsivity and Inhibitory Control; LIIC = Low Impulsivity and Inhibitory Control; LIHIC = Low Impulsivity High Inhibitory Control; HILIC = High Impulsivity Low Inhibitory Control. High = score above the median; Low = score below the median.
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Level dimension showed less error percentages in the “ignore” (4%) than in the “attend to and remember” (5%) condition. Memory Test Data The recognition scores were reliably higher for the attended than the ignored primes in both age groups, t(25) = 2.30, p < .001 and t(22) = 3.03, p = .0062, respectively. All the recognition scores were significantly different from 0 (chance level) for both Group 1, t(25) = 3.78, p < .001 (attended primes), t(25) = 3.52, p < .01 (ignored primes), and Group 2, t(22) = 7.78, p < .001, and t(22) = 6.26, p < .01, respectively. Table 3 shows the recognition scores and average number of recognized prime words for each group of age. In a 2 (Age Group: Group 1 vs. Group 2) × 2 (Recognition Task: attended vs. ignored primes) ANOVA with recognition scores as the dependent variable, the main effect for Age Group was significant, F(1, 47) = 5.82, p = .0019; namely, the average recognition scores were reliably lower in Group 1 (d’ = 0.89) than in Group 2 (d’ = 1.59). The main effect for the Recognition Task was also significant, F(1, 47) = 14.99, p = .0003, showing a higher recognition for the attended than the ignored primes. The Age Group × Recognition Task interaction showed a significant trend, F(1, 47) = 2.84, p = .09. An independentsamples t-test was conducted so as to compare the recognition scores for the attended and the ignored words in both age groups. Older children recognized more attended words than younger children, t(47) = 2.53, p = .014, but there was no difference regarding the ignored words, t(47) = 1.55, p = .126. DISCUSSION One of the aims of this study was to find out what percentage of children aged from 7 to 12 years old was able to show semantic negative priming in the “ignore” condition, using a lexical decision task. We confirmed the presence of two ignored priming patterns with 43% of the children exhibiting NP and the remaining 57% exhibiting ignored facilitation, but the overall NP effect was not significant. This finding, unlike Noguera et al.’s study with adults (2007), raises concern about the reason for its absence. First of all, the presence of this dual execution pattern in a relatively similar percentage could explain why the overall NP effect did not reach statistical significance. In addition, this finding is consistent with the idea that the inhibitory control mechanisms are not fully developed and, therefore, are not equally effective in all children because of Table 3 Recognition Scores (Sensitivity Index or d’) and Average Number of Recognized Prime Words (in Parentheses) for Each Group of Age. Prime Words Type Age Groups Group 1 (G1) Group 2 (G2) Mean Score G1-G2
Attended
Ignored
1.07** (5/12) 2.06* (8/12)
0.71** (4/12) 1.13* (5/12)
1.56
0.92
Notes. Attended-Ignored differences were significant for Group 1. All recognition scores were above chance level (d’ = 0; p < .01). *p < .01; **p < .001.
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the developmental differences in inhibition. In fact, the average percentages of the two age groups were 38% (Group 1) and 48% (Group 2), indicating that these inhibitory mechanisms are sensitive to age. Secondly, the question must be asked whether the attentional instructions were actually effective in modulating the effects of semantic priming. Children spent more time on the attended words than on the ignored ones, most likely because of the attempt to memorize them. As expected, older children recognized more attended words than younger children; nevertheless, both groups had similar difficulty with ignoring words, which is probably due to the fact that they were presented at a foveal and attended location, increasing the difficulty to ignore them. It should be noted that prime words appeared at the same location as the probe stimuli on which the children made a lexical decision task, which would complicate the task of ignoring the prime words preceded by a “NO” instruction even if they were briefly masked. In addition, when the memory task was over, the children were asked about the strategies they had used to remember the prime words. Most of them reported having used subvocal repetition as a memory strategy, suggesting an active participation of the phonological subcomponent in the working memory (associated with cognitive development) of the youngest children as well (Gathercole, Pickering, Ambridge, & Wearing, 2004). The term “working memory” refers to a system for the temporary storage and manipulation of information necessary for tasks such as language, comprehension, learning, and reasoning. According to the threecomponent model of the working memory, this system includes an attentional control component, the central executive, and two subsidiary slave systems. The visuospatial sketchpad subsystem holds and manipulates visual and spatial information, while the phonological loop subsystem stores phonological information and prevents its decay by continuously articulating it, thereby refreshing the information in a rehearsal loop (see Baddeley, 1992, for a review). Also note that the children were not only required to remember that the instructions “YES” and “NO” implied “attend to and memorize” and “ignore,” respectively, which were the prime words, but also to memorize the prime words preceded by a “YES,” increasing the memory load as the trials progressed. It is assumed that the children have to inhibit memorizing the words preceded by a “NO,” but it is also necessary that the rules of the task (“attend to and memorize” the prime words preceded by a “YES” and “ignore” the remaining words) are maintained in working memory. If the children forget the rules, then the error rate and/or the recognition of the ignored words are likely to increase. Therefore, the task used for the present study clearly involves substantial participation of the working memory and can be considered a complex response inhibition task to the extent that it requires children to keep in mind arbitrary rules or instructions and to inhibit a response (whether forceful or not) to produce another alternative response (Garon, Bryson, & Smith, 2008). In this type of task that combines inhibition and working memory, improvement in inhibition was observed with age, particularly from 5 to 8 (Carlson, 2005), and even in later stages for computerized tasks (Best & Miller, 2010). And thirdly, some authors consider that the percentage of data concerning children who exhibit NP or the absence of NP suggest varying forms of attentional control, which could lead us to oppose patterns of semantic priming (Frings et al., 2007; Pritchard & Neumann, 2009; Tipper et al., 1989). We propose that the explanatory framework for the differences observed in NP should consider not only age and task requirements but also the effect of a temperament-related factor on behavior self-regulation. Indeed, the exiguous research in which temperament traits have been considered in relation to children’s
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ability to inhibit irrelevant information suggests that individual differences in self-regulation abilities could help to explain how these inhibitory control mechanisms behave (González et al., 2001). In the present study, we examine this ability in children from 7 to 12, categorized as high or low in each temperament dimension included in the TMCQ. In general, the data suggest the capacity of certain temperament traits, such as Inhibitory Control, Impulsivity, Fantasy, Fear and Low-Intensity Pleasure, to modulate the pattern of semantic priming. The children exhibiting high Inhibitory Control spent more time on attending to (and remembering) prime words than on ignoring them, while children with low Inhibitory Control spent a similar amount of time on both types of words, demonstrating a greater interference of ignored words in the recognition task. The Inhibitory Control dimension also interacted with the Impulsivity trait. However, the observed and inconsistent data concerning the nature of the relation between these two factors could be due to the use of impure inhibition measurements, which are clearly affected by other processes such as the working memory (Enticott, Ogloff, & Bradshaw, 2006). Additionally, the more emotional temperamental traits also appear to “modulate” children’s execution in the lexical decision task. The children who exhibited ignored facilitation and scored low in the Fantasy/Openness and Fear traits were faster than highscoring children, most likely due to less inhibitory and distracting responses as they faced the task. These factors of the emotional system did not affect reaction times of children who exhibited NP, most likely due to more efficient self-regulatory control attenuating the negative affect. Finally, the children who exhibited NP and scored high in the LowIntensity Pleasure dimension—characterized by pleasure observed in reading, word sounds, and a quiet play—responded faster than the children with a low score, most likely due to greater motivation. Taking into account that executive attention is involved in the regulation of emotions and it continues to develop until relatively late, it would seem logical to assume that the effectiveness of mechanisms to control both emotions and action would be different for each child. In general, these results are coherent with the concept of attention as a multicomponent phenomenon that can exercise control functions in emotional and cognitive systems (Posner & Rothbart, 1998). The data also reveal the importance of temperament traits and their relation to selective attention in order to explain different behavior patterns in tasks requiring the inhibition of irrelevant information. In this sense we think that temperament would also contribute to a more effective overall cognitive functioning. What is obvious is that negative priming is a complex phenomenon, which likely involves the interaction of influencing factors to varying degrees, and that further research is required. Original manuscript received September 30, 2013 Revised manuscript accepted April 5, 2014 First published online May 16, 2014
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Best, J. R., & Miller, P. H. (2010). A developmental perspective on executive function. Child Development, 81, 1641–1660. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01499.x Carlson, S. M. (2005). Developmentally sensitive measures of executive function in preschool children. Developmental Neuropsychology, 28, 595–616. doi:10.1207/s15326942dn2802_3 Enticott, P. G., Ogloff, J. R. P., & Bradshaw, J. L. (2006). Associations between laboratory measures of executive inhibitory control and self-reported impulsivity. Personality and Individual Differences, 41, 285–294. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2006.01.011 Frings, C., Feix, S., Röthig, U., Brüser, C., & Junge, M. (2007). Children do show negative priming: Further evidence for early development of an intact selective control mechanism. Developmental Psychology, 43(5), 1269–1273. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.43.5.1269 Frings, C., & Wentura, D. (2005). Negative priming with masked distractor-only prime trials: Awareness moderates negative priming. Experimental Psychology (formerly “Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie”), 52, 131–139. doi:10.1027/1618-3169.52.2.131 Garon, N., Bryson, S. E., & Smith, I. M. (2008). Executive function in preschoolers: A review using an integrative framework. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 31–60. doi:10.1037/00332909.134.1.31 Gathercole, S. F., 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. doi:10.1037/ 0012-1649.40.2.177 Gerardi, G., Rothbart, M. K., Posner, M. I., & Kepler, S. (1996, April). The development of attentional control: Performance on a spatial Stroop-like task at 24, 30, and 36–38 months of age. Poster session presented the annual meeting of the International Society for Infant Studies, Providence, RI. Gerstadt, C. L., Hong, Y. J., & Diamond, A. (1994). The relationship between cognition and action: Performance of children 31/2–7 years old on a stroop- like day-night test. Cognition, 53, 129–153. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(94)90068-X González, C., Fuentes, L. J., Carranza, J. A., & Estévez, A. F. (2001). Temperament and attention in the self-regulation of 7-year-old children. Personality and Individual Differences, 30, 931–946. doi:10.1016/S0191-8869(00)00084-2 Healy, D., & Burt, J. S. (2003). Attending to the distractor and old/new discriminations in negative priming. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Section A, 56, 421–443. doi:10.1080/02724980244000477 Milliken, B., Joordens, S., Merikle, P., & Seiffert, A. (1998). Selective attention: A re- evaluation of the implications of negative priming. Psychological Review, 105, 203–229. doi:10.1037/0033295X.105.2.203 Noguera, C., Ortells, J. J., Abad, M. J. F., Carmona, E., & Daza, M. T. (2007). Semantic priming effects from single words in a lexical decision task. Acta Psychologica, 125, 175–202. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2006.07.007 Posner, M. I., & Rothbart, M. K. (1998). Attention, self-regulation, and consciousness. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 353, 1915–1927. doi:10.1098/rstb.1998.0344 Pritchard, V. E., & Neumann, E. (2004). Negative priming effects in children engaged in nonspatial tasks: Evidence for early development of an intact inhibitory mechanism. Developmental Psychology, 40, 191–203. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.40.2.191 Pritchard, V. E., & Neumann, E. (2009). Avoiding the potential pitfalls of using negative priming tasks in developmental studies: Assessing inhibitory control in children, adolescents, and adults. Developmental Psychology, 45, 272–283. doi:10.1037/a0014168 Rothbart, M. K. (1989). Temperament in childhood: A framework. In G. A. Kohnstamm, J. E. Bates, & M. K. Rothbart (Eds.), Temperament in childhood (pp. 59–73). Chichester: Wiley. Rothbart, M. K., & Derryberry, D. (1981). Development of individual differences temperament. In J. W. Fagen & J. Colombo (Eds.), Advances in developmental psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 37–86). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
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Simonds, J., & Rothbart, M. K. (2004, October). The Temperament in Middle Childhood Questionnaire (TMCQ): A computerized self-report measure of temperament for ages 7–10. Poster session presented at the Occasional Temperament Conference, Athens, GA. Simone, P. M., & McCormick, E. B. (1999). Effect of a defining feature on negative priming across the life span. Visual Cognition, 6(5), 587–606. doi:10.1080/135062899394957 Simpson, A., & Riggs, K. J. (2005). Factors responsible for performance on the day-night task: Response set or semantics? Developmental Science, 8, 360–371. doi:10.1111/j.14677687.2005.00424.x Soto, P., Sebastián, M. V., García, E., & Del Amo, T. (1982). Categorización y datos normativos en España. Madrid: Cantoblanco. Tipper, S. P. (2001). Does negative priming reflect inhibitory mechanisms? A review and integration of conflicting views. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A, 54, 321–343. doi:10.1080/713755969 Tipper, S. P., Bourque, T., Anderson, S., & Brehaut, J. C. (1989). Mechanisms of attention: A developmental study. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 16, 492–504.
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Temperament and negative semantic priming in children 7 to 12 years old Carmen Noguera, Dolores Álvarez, Encarna Carmona, and Laura Parra Department of Psychology, University of Almería, Almería, Spain The present research assessed whether children with high and low scores on temperament traits differed in their ability to inhibit irrelevant task information in a lexical decision task. Children from 7 to 12 years old were classified based on temperament dimensions measured using a version of the Temperament in Middle Childhood Questionnaire. The participants were instructed to either attend to (and remember) or to ignore a masked prime word followed by a central probe target on which they made a lexical decision. The results revealed several notable outcomes. First of all, recognition memory was better for attended than ignored words, providing further evidence that attention instructions influenced the processing of the primes. Secondly, although no negative priming effect was obtained in the “ignore” condition, 43% of children showed this effect. Thirdly, children scoring high on Inhibitory Control and Impulsivity showed ignored negative priming, whereas children scoring high on Inhibitory Control and low on Impulsivity ignored facilitation. Data are discussed within the framework of negative priming as a complex phenomenon that involves the interaction of different factors such as age, type of task, and certain temperament traits. Keywords: Temperament; Childhood; Control processes; Negative semantic priming.
One of the behavioral control and regulation processes that contributes to an effective global executive function is the ability to inhibit irrelevant information in the task at hand. In this way, the control function facilitates the processing and the response to essential information to the detriment of distractor information. To the extent that the effect of negative priming (NP) is considered as a direct index of selective control mechanisms in the processing of activated but irrelevant information, the absence of NP may be indicative of an “alteration” in the ability to select information This research was supported by a Grant PSI2009-12684 given to the first author by the Ministry of Education and Culture (Spain). The Temperament in Middle Childhood Questionnaire has been translated into Spanish by the Group of research on Attention, within the framework of the project Cognition and Education (CSD2008-00048), with the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Culture (ConsoliderIngenio Program, 2010). Finally, the authors would like to thank the children, teachers, parents, and principals of the two schools taking part in this research, Padre Méndez and Adela Díaz from Almería (Spain), for their participation and cooperation. Address correspondence to Carmen Noguera, Departamento de Psicología, Universidad de Almería, 04120 Almería, Spain. E-mail: [email protected]
© 2014 Taylor & Francis
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relevant to the task in the presence of distractor information. The effect of NP has traditionally been explored in selective attention tasks in which two consecutive trials are presented: a prime trial and a probe trial. Each of them contains both a distractor stimulus and a target stimulus, to which the participants must respond while simultaneously ignoring the distractor stimulus. Under the ignored repetition condition in which the distractor stimulus is subsequently presented as the target, an increase in the reaction time is observed with respect to the condition in which stimuli are not repeated. This increase in response latency is known as negative priming (for a review and integration of conflicting accounts, see Tipper, 2001). There are currently various versions of this procedure in which NP has been observed not only in the absence of a prime distractor stimulus (Frings & Wentura, 2005; Healy & Burt, 2003; Milliken, Joordens, Merikle, & Seiffert, 1998; Noguera, Ortells, Abad, Carmona, & Daza, 2007) but also in the absence of a distractor stimulus on the probe trial in binary tasks such as lexical decision or semantic categorization (Abad, Noguera, & Ortells, 2003; Noguera et al., 2007). Moreover, the findings of several studies suggest that manipulations affecting the processing of the prime stimulus, such as attentional instructions on how to process such stimulus or the presentation time, may be even more influential than the presence of distractors on the probe display to obtain NP (Milliken et al., 1998; Noguera et al., 2007). The NP procedure has been used to examine the development of inhibitory control processes in child populations. The ability to show this effect appears to depend not only on the age but also on task demands. For instance, Simone and McCormick (1999) suggested that the location-based NP, but not the identity-based NP, is intact in childhood. Pritchard and Neumann (2004, 2009, see also Frings, Feix, Röthig, Brüser, & Junge, 2007) observed NP in children between 5 and 12 years old in a task with no spatial features. Tipper and colleagues did not observe NP in a Stroop-variant task in children between 7 and 8 years old; therefore, the authors concluded that selective control mechanisms were not fully developed until puberty (Tipper, Bourque, Anderson, & Brehaut, 1989). Additional research using the day-night Stroop-like task showed strong evidence for the development of such mechanisms in later childhood (Gerstadt, Hong, & Diamond, 1994; Simpson & Riggs, 2005). There is some controversy regarding the age at which efficient inhibitory control, measured by the observation of NP, begins and becomes established because it also appears to depend on the type of task. However, information provided by various studies on the percentage of children exhibiting NP within selected samples may reflect the presence of different behavioral patterns rather than an incapacity (or lack of maturity) to inhibit irrelevant information. Tipper et al. (1989) pointed out that 70% of children produced NP under the ignored repetition pictures condition (Experiment 3). However, no significant interference or NP effects were observed in these children. In the study of Frings et al. (2007), children were instructed to name the colors of the central blobs while ignoring the outer ones, and only 57% of children from 6 to 11 years old showed significant NP for ignored repetition cards. In additional research, Pritchard and Neumann (2009) asked participants to name the print color of Stroop items (Experiment 1) as well as the color of a central blob flanked by two other blobs (Experiment 2). In general, the average percentages of three age groups between 5 and 12 exhibiting NP were 64%, 76%, and 78% in Experiment 1 and 80%, 72%, and 82% in Experiment 2, respectively.
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Examining these data, one might ask why, within the same development stage and when encountering the same task, only certain participants displayed NP. As noted above, the absence of NP in children does not necessarily imply that their selective control mechanisms are not efficient at inhibiting irrelevant information. The interaction of other factors in addition to the development stage and type of task may explain the variability observed. We propose that one of these factors may be related to individual differences in temperament traits linked to various forms of attentional control. Temperament has been conceptualized as individual differences in reactivity and self-auto regulation, which are constitutionally based and influenced through time by heredity, maturation, and experience (Rothbart & Derryberry, 1981). The concept of reactivity refers to responsiveness of emotional, activation, and arousal systems, whereas the self-auto regulation includes processes such as approach, avoidance, and attention that modulate the reactivity of a person (Rothbart, 1989). The results of some studies suggest the importance of considering the temperament traits. For example, González and colleagues classified a group of 7-year-old children according to their temperament traits, measured by means of the Child Behavior Questionnaire. Those who scored high in activity level and impulsivity but low in inhibitory control exhibited a greater Stroop-type interference effect, suggesting less ability to suppress prepotent behaviors when acting according to instructions. However, children who scored high in anger, discomfort, sadness, and approach-anticipation exhibited a greater flank interference effect, that is, greater difficulty in filtering nonrelevant information than children with a low score (González, Fuentes, Carranza, & Estévez, 2001). Additional research suggests that the tendency to exhibit a low distress and impulsivity level accompanied by high capacity for adaptation and inhibitory control is related to a better attentional function (Gerardi, Rothbart, Posner, & Kepler, 1996). In this context, attention would imply a multicomponent mechanism exercising control over cognitive operations and emotional responses (Posner & Rothbart, 1998). Therefore, the objective of the present study was twofold. First of all, this study aimed to discover, using the NP procedure developed by Noguera et al. (2007), what percentage of children aged from 7 to 12 years are able to exhibit NP. In their study, Noguera and colleagues utilized a lexical decision task to explore negative semantic priming from prime words by manipulating attentional instructions and prime durations in adults. For instance, if participants saw “YES” printed in green before the prime display onset, they should attend to and remember the following prime word. On the contrary, if they saw “NO” printed in red they should then ignore it as if it were a distractor that would disrupt their memory for the attended words. This prime word could be either associatively and categorically related to the upcoming target or unrelated. An opposite negative priming effect was obtained from ignored primes briefly presented and masked to that produced from attended primes. Secondly, the study aimed to explore how temperament traits, measured by a version of the Temperament in Middle Childhood Questionnaire (TMCQ; Simonds & Rothbart, 2004), may help to explain a possible differential pattern of priming.
METHOD Participants A total of 49 children from 7 to 12 years took part in this study. A written consent to undertake this research was given by their parents, as well as the principal of the Spanish
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schools Padre Méndez and Adela Díaz, the tutor of each grade, and the Department of Education of the Regional government of Andalucía. Children evidencing reading or learning problems during the practices were excluded. All participants were instructed to perform a lexical decision task before completing a recognition task. In the results section, they were divided into two groups: 26 seven- to 9-year-olds (M = 8.5, Group 1) and 23 ten- to 12-year-olds (M = 10.7, Group 2); the reason for this distribution was to determine whether older children performed better on a recognition task than younger children because of improvements in working memory capacity across age groups.
Instruments Priming Procedure and Recognition Task. The stimuli and the procedure were adopted from Noguera and colleagues (2007, Experiment 4). All stimuli were presented on a computer screen. Each trial consisted of a sequence of eight critical displays (see Figure 1). The fixation display consisting of a white asterisk (*) presented at the center of the screen on a dark grey background. The instruction display consisted of either the word “YES” printed in green or the word “NO” printed in red and presented just above fixation. Both the prime and the probe displays consisted of a single uppercase letter string (4, 5, or 6 letters) presented at the center of the screen (foveal location). The prime word was followed by a masking pattern consisting of a series of ampersands (&&&&&&) at the center of the screen (the mask display). The children were asked to respond by pressing either the “m” or the “c” keys whether the target or probe stimulus was a meaningful word or, on the contrary, it was a nonword. Mappings of word/nonword decisions and the correct key (“m” or “c”) were counterbalanced across participants. A total of 64 (16 per category) concrete and familiar nouns from four to six letters belonging to four different semantic categories (geographical features and atmospheric phenomena, foods, animals, and body parts) were selected from the norms published by Soto, Sebastián, García, and Del Amo (1982). A set of 64 additional words (16 from each category) from four to six letters was selected, changing one letter from each word in order to produce an orthographically regular pronounceable nonword. When prime and
Figure 1 Example of the temporal sequence of events (used by Noguera et al., 2007, Experiment 4) when the target is a “word” presented for the instruction of attending and remembering (“YES” printed in green) the prime word.
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probe words were related, they belonged to the same semantic category and were highly associated. Children were informed that after completing the experiment, they would carry out a recognition task about the previously attended words. Although participants were told that there only was one recognition test, two tests were actually presented, one about the attended and the other about the ignored ones. They had to classify each word as “new” or “old” depending on whether or not the word appeared throughout the experiment. A total of 24 words were presented: 12 “old” words presented as either attended or ignored words on the prime display, and 12 “new” items (not previously presented) belonging to the same four semantic categories mentioned above. Each participant received a different random ordering of the old and new items. Prior to the experimental trials, each child completed one practice phase that consisted of two brief blocks: one block of eight trials to decide whether the probe stimulus was a word or a nonword and an additional block of 12 trials to practice with the attention instructions. Children were requested to name the prime word preceded by a “YES” and to remain silent when a “NO” preceded the prime word. Children did not memorize the attended words and only read them aloud in this phase. The experimental block consisted of 144 trials (96 words and 48 nonwords) distributed in two blocks of 72 trials, which were separated by a short break. Half of the trials were “attend to and remember” and half were “ignore.” Within each of these conditions, half of the probe words were related to the preceding prime words and the remaining half of the words were unrelated. Measurement of Children’s Temperament A version of the Temperament in Middle Childhood Questionnaire (TMCQ; Simonds & Rothbart, 2004), which was translated into Spanish by a group of researcher in attention (CO-EDUCA Program: CSD2008-00048), was used to measure children’s temperament. This questionnaire provides caregivers’ responses to 158 items describing their children’s behavior in a variety of everyday life situations on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from “almost always false” to ”almost always true.” The TMCQ assesses the following 17 dimensions of temperament: Activation Control, Activity Level, Affiliation, Anger/Frustration, Assertiveness/Dominance, Attentional Focusing, Discomfort, Fantasy/ Openness, Fear, High-Intensity Pleasure, Impulsivity, Inhibitory Control, Low-Intensity Pleasure, Perceptual Sensitivity, Sadness, Shyness, and Soothability/Falling Reactivity. Although this version is not yet published, the internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) values for the subscales ranged from .70 to .89. The TMCQ was explained to the parents via a letter and by means of a personal interview. For those who could not be present at the interview, all the information was facilitated to them by telephone. The parents filled out the questionnaires at home within a 3-week interval after the accomplishment of the cognitive task by their children. RESULTS General Priming Effects In a 2 (Instructions: attend to vs. ignore) × 2 (prime-probe Relatedness: related vs. unrelated) analysis of variance (ANOVA) with reaction times as the dependent variable, the
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main effects for Instructions and Relatedness were significant, F(1, 48) = 4.32, p = .043; and F(1, 48) = 9.0,p = .004, respectively. The responses were faster in the ignored (789 ms) and related (792 ms) conditions than in the attended (831 ms) and unrelated (829 ms) conditions. There was an Instructions × Relatedness interaction, F(1, 48) = 9.03, p = .0042. Planned comparisons revealed a positive priming of +70 ms from the attended words, F(1, 48) = 16.56, p < .001 and a reduced priming effect of +3 ms from the ignored words (p > .05). Although no NP overall effect was obtained, 43% of children produced the effect. The percentage of children that showed NP was 38% for 7- to 9-year-olds and 48% for 10to 12-year-olds. Low error rates (no condition was above a 5% error rate) were also submitted to analysis but no main effects or interactions were significant (all ps > .40).
Relations Between Temperament Dimensions and Priming Effects The children were also split into two groups according to the median value in each temperament dimension. The participants scoring below or above the median were categorized as low or high on each temperament dimension, respectively. Mixed 2 × 2 ANOVAs with ignored priming sign (positive vs. negative) and temperament scores (low vs. high) as the between-subjects factors were conducted for each temperament dimension on the latency and accuracy measures. Firstly, reaction time analyses showed main effects of the Activation Control, F(1, 47) = 5.18, p = .027, and the Impulsivity, F(1, 47) = 7.22, p = .009, dimensions. Children scoring high on Activation Control responded faster (744 ms) than those with low scores (881 ms), whereas children scoring high on Impulsivity responded slower (892 ms) than those with low scores (733 ms) on the Impulsivity trait. The Instructions × Inhibitory Control interaction was significant, F(1, 47) = 6.98, p = .011, because the participants with high Inhibitory Control invested more time in the “attend to and remember” (847 ms) than in the “ignore” condition (753 ms), whereas those children with low Inhibitory Control did not show differences in both conditions (818 ms vs. 825 ms, respectively). Secondly, different patterns of performance were observed for children with negative priming versus positive priming in the “ignore” condition on Activity Level and HighIntensity Pleasure dimensions. Table 1 shows the priming effect in the “ignore” condition as a function of high and low scores on these two dimensions. The group with ignored NP showed a Relatedness × Activity Level interaction, F(1, 19) = 9.40, p = .006, because more Table 1 Priming Effect (in ms) in the “Ignore” Condition as a Function of Scores in Temperament Dimensions. Negative
Positive
Ignored priming sign
High
Low
High
Low
Temperament dimensions Activity Level High Intensity Pleasure
− 151 − 141
− 68* − 74*
+ 74 + 80
+ 87 + 80
Notes. High = score above the median; Low = score below the median. *High-Low differences were significant, p < .05.
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NP was observed in children with high scores that in those with low scores. However, there were no significant differences between high- and low-Activity Level in children who exhibited ignored positive priming. For the ignored NP group, there was also a significant Relatedness × High Intensity Pleasure interaction, F(1, 19) = 5.17, p = .034, showing a greater NP in children with high scores than in those with low scores. The ignored positive priming group did not show significant differences between high and low scores, F < 1. In addition, for the group with ignored NP, the main effects of the Low-Intensity Pleasure and the High-Intensity Pleasure dimensions were also significant, F(1, 19) = 5.30, p = .032 and F(1, 19) = 4.04, p = .05, respectively, because the responses of those children with high scores on the Low-Intensity Pleasure were faster (713 ms) than those with low scores (925 ms). On the contrary, children with low scores on the High-Intensity Pleasure responded faster (749 ms) than those with high scores (945 ms). The group with ignored positive priming did not differ in priming magnitude, F < 1. Finally, only those children that showed ignored positive priming and scored low on the Fantasy/Openness (685 ms) and Fear (703 ms) dimensions, exhibited latencies faster than those with high scores (870 ms vs. 859 ms), F(1, 26) = 7.51, p = .01 and F(1, 26) = 4.81, p = .037, respectively. The group with ignored NP did not show differences between low and high scores on these traits, F < 1. Thirdly, when the scores on Impulsivity and Inhibitory Control were jointly considered, an interesting additional pattern of results was obtained because both dimensions interacted with Instructions and Relatedness, F(1, 45) = 8.14, p = .0065. Table 2 shows the pattern of attended and ignored priming for children who scored high or low on the Impulsivity and Inhibitory Control dimensions. The participants with high scores on both temperament traits showed positive priming from attended prime words and negative priming from ignored primes. And fourthly, the error data analyses showed a main effect of the Discomfort dimension, F(1, 47) = 8.94, p = .0044, indicating a greater percentage of error in children with high scores (6%) than in those with low scores (2%). The Instructions × Activity Level interaction was significant, F(1, 47) = 3.94, p = .05, because the participants who scored high on this trait made fewer errors in the “attend to and remember” (4%) than in the “ignore” (5%) condition. However, the participants who scored low on the Activity
Table 2 Magnitude and Sign (Positive vs. Negative) of Priming Effect (in ms) for Each Paired Combination of Temperament Traits (Impulsivity and Inhibitory Control) as a Function of Attentional Instructions (Attend to and Remember vs. Ignore the Prime Word). Attentional Instructions Paired Combinations HIIC LIIC LIHIC HILIC
Attend to and remember
Ignore
+ 199 −9 + 83 + 50
− 122 − 34 + 29 + 21
Notes. HIIC = High Impulsivity and Inhibitory Control; LIIC = Low Impulsivity and Inhibitory Control; LIHIC = Low Impulsivity High Inhibitory Control; HILIC = High Impulsivity Low Inhibitory Control. High = score above the median; Low = score below the median.
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Level dimension showed less error percentages in the “ignore” (4%) than in the “attend to and remember” (5%) condition. Memory Test Data The recognition scores were reliably higher for the attended than the ignored primes in both age groups, t(25) = 2.30, p < .001 and t(22) = 3.03, p = .0062, respectively. All the recognition scores were significantly different from 0 (chance level) for both Group 1, t(25) = 3.78, p < .001 (attended primes), t(25) = 3.52, p < .01 (ignored primes), and Group 2, t(22) = 7.78, p < .001, and t(22) = 6.26, p < .01, respectively. Table 3 shows the recognition scores and average number of recognized prime words for each group of age. In a 2 (Age Group: Group 1 vs. Group 2) × 2 (Recognition Task: attended vs. ignored primes) ANOVA with recognition scores as the dependent variable, the main effect for Age Group was significant, F(1, 47) = 5.82, p = .0019; namely, the average recognition scores were reliably lower in Group 1 (d’ = 0.89) than in Group 2 (d’ = 1.59). The main effect for the Recognition Task was also significant, F(1, 47) = 14.99, p = .0003, showing a higher recognition for the attended than the ignored primes. The Age Group × Recognition Task interaction showed a significant trend, F(1, 47) = 2.84, p = .09. An independentsamples t-test was conducted so as to compare the recognition scores for the attended and the ignored words in both age groups. Older children recognized more attended words than younger children, t(47) = 2.53, p = .014, but there was no difference regarding the ignored words, t(47) = 1.55, p = .126. DISCUSSION One of the aims of this study was to find out what percentage of children aged from 7 to 12 years old was able to show semantic negative priming in the “ignore” condition, using a lexical decision task. We confirmed the presence of two ignored priming patterns with 43% of the children exhibiting NP and the remaining 57% exhibiting ignored facilitation, but the overall NP effect was not significant. This finding, unlike Noguera et al.’s study with adults (2007), raises concern about the reason for its absence. First of all, the presence of this dual execution pattern in a relatively similar percentage could explain why the overall NP effect did not reach statistical significance. In addition, this finding is consistent with the idea that the inhibitory control mechanisms are not fully developed and, therefore, are not equally effective in all children because of Table 3 Recognition Scores (Sensitivity Index or d’) and Average Number of Recognized Prime Words (in Parentheses) for Each Group of Age. Prime Words Type Age Groups Group 1 (G1) Group 2 (G2) Mean Score G1-G2
Attended
Ignored
1.07** (5/12) 2.06* (8/12)
0.71** (4/12) 1.13* (5/12)
1.56
0.92
Notes. Attended-Ignored differences were significant for Group 1. All recognition scores were above chance level (d’ = 0; p < .01). *p < .01; **p < .001.
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the developmental differences in inhibition. In fact, the average percentages of the two age groups were 38% (Group 1) and 48% (Group 2), indicating that these inhibitory mechanisms are sensitive to age. Secondly, the question must be asked whether the attentional instructions were actually effective in modulating the effects of semantic priming. Children spent more time on the attended words than on the ignored ones, most likely because of the attempt to memorize them. As expected, older children recognized more attended words than younger children; nevertheless, both groups had similar difficulty with ignoring words, which is probably due to the fact that they were presented at a foveal and attended location, increasing the difficulty to ignore them. It should be noted that prime words appeared at the same location as the probe stimuli on which the children made a lexical decision task, which would complicate the task of ignoring the prime words preceded by a “NO” instruction even if they were briefly masked. In addition, when the memory task was over, the children were asked about the strategies they had used to remember the prime words. Most of them reported having used subvocal repetition as a memory strategy, suggesting an active participation of the phonological subcomponent in the working memory (associated with cognitive development) of the youngest children as well (Gathercole, Pickering, Ambridge, & Wearing, 2004). The term “working memory” refers to a system for the temporary storage and manipulation of information necessary for tasks such as language, comprehension, learning, and reasoning. According to the threecomponent model of the working memory, this system includes an attentional control component, the central executive, and two subsidiary slave systems. The visuospatial sketchpad subsystem holds and manipulates visual and spatial information, while the phonological loop subsystem stores phonological information and prevents its decay by continuously articulating it, thereby refreshing the information in a rehearsal loop (see Baddeley, 1992, for a review). Also note that the children were not only required to remember that the instructions “YES” and “NO” implied “attend to and memorize” and “ignore,” respectively, which were the prime words, but also to memorize the prime words preceded by a “YES,” increasing the memory load as the trials progressed. It is assumed that the children have to inhibit memorizing the words preceded by a “NO,” but it is also necessary that the rules of the task (“attend to and memorize” the prime words preceded by a “YES” and “ignore” the remaining words) are maintained in working memory. If the children forget the rules, then the error rate and/or the recognition of the ignored words are likely to increase. Therefore, the task used for the present study clearly involves substantial participation of the working memory and can be considered a complex response inhibition task to the extent that it requires children to keep in mind arbitrary rules or instructions and to inhibit a response (whether forceful or not) to produce another alternative response (Garon, Bryson, & Smith, 2008). In this type of task that combines inhibition and working memory, improvement in inhibition was observed with age, particularly from 5 to 8 (Carlson, 2005), and even in later stages for computerized tasks (Best & Miller, 2010). And thirdly, some authors consider that the percentage of data concerning children who exhibit NP or the absence of NP suggest varying forms of attentional control, which could lead us to oppose patterns of semantic priming (Frings et al., 2007; Pritchard & Neumann, 2009; Tipper et al., 1989). We propose that the explanatory framework for the differences observed in NP should consider not only age and task requirements but also the effect of a temperament-related factor on behavior self-regulation. Indeed, the exiguous research in which temperament traits have been considered in relation to children’s
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ability to inhibit irrelevant information suggests that individual differences in self-regulation abilities could help to explain how these inhibitory control mechanisms behave (González et al., 2001). In the present study, we examine this ability in children from 7 to 12, categorized as high or low in each temperament dimension included in the TMCQ. In general, the data suggest the capacity of certain temperament traits, such as Inhibitory Control, Impulsivity, Fantasy, Fear and Low-Intensity Pleasure, to modulate the pattern of semantic priming. The children exhibiting high Inhibitory Control spent more time on attending to (and remembering) prime words than on ignoring them, while children with low Inhibitory Control spent a similar amount of time on both types of words, demonstrating a greater interference of ignored words in the recognition task. The Inhibitory Control dimension also interacted with the Impulsivity trait. However, the observed and inconsistent data concerning the nature of the relation between these two factors could be due to the use of impure inhibition measurements, which are clearly affected by other processes such as the working memory (Enticott, Ogloff, & Bradshaw, 2006). Additionally, the more emotional temperamental traits also appear to “modulate” children’s execution in the lexical decision task. The children who exhibited ignored facilitation and scored low in the Fantasy/Openness and Fear traits were faster than highscoring children, most likely due to less inhibitory and distracting responses as they faced the task. These factors of the emotional system did not affect reaction times of children who exhibited NP, most likely due to more efficient self-regulatory control attenuating the negative affect. Finally, the children who exhibited NP and scored high in the LowIntensity Pleasure dimension—characterized by pleasure observed in reading, word sounds, and a quiet play—responded faster than the children with a low score, most likely due to greater motivation. Taking into account that executive attention is involved in the regulation of emotions and it continues to develop until relatively late, it would seem logical to assume that the effectiveness of mechanisms to control both emotions and action would be different for each child. In general, these results are coherent with the concept of attention as a multicomponent phenomenon that can exercise control functions in emotional and cognitive systems (Posner & Rothbart, 1998). The data also reveal the importance of temperament traits and their relation to selective attention in order to explain different behavior patterns in tasks requiring the inhibition of irrelevant information. In this sense we think that temperament would also contribute to a more effective overall cognitive functioning. What is obvious is that negative priming is a complex phenomenon, which likely involves the interaction of influencing factors to varying degrees, and that further research is required. Original manuscript received September 30, 2013 Revised manuscript accepted April 5, 2014 First published online May 16, 2014
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