2-089 - New Directions in Research Exploring Links Between Executive Function and Experience

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Children experience and act within a broad range of environments that have the potential to both stimulate and disrupt cognitive development. One aspect of cognitive development that is shaped by experience is executive function (EF), the cognitive processes supporting the control of thought, emotion and action. EF develops rapidly and is associated with a range of outcomes in childhood and later in life (Blair & Razza, 2007; Moffitt et al., 2011); however, relatively little is known about how EF is influenced by the experiences children encounter in their daily lives. This symposium brings together new, diverse research exploring relations between EF and a cross-section of experiences at home and at school. The first paper builds on recent findings showing that children’s time use outside of school predicts their EF. New analyses suggest that social, rather than solitary, activities may strongly contribute to this relation, and that one form of less-structured time, media-multitasking, predicts worse EF. In paper two, new findings on the impact of television on EF are discussed, including neurobehavioral evidence on how viewing fantastical entertainment cartoons disrupts EF. In paper three, experimental findings are presented that provide the first evidence that linguistic experience that increases children’s awareness of conflict aids the development of EF. The fourth paper presents new research examining how the classroom visual environment interacts with individual differences in EFs to produce differential learning outcomes. Together, these papers shed light on the wide range of environments and experiences that can impact the healthy development of EF.

Sub Unit

• Cognitive Processes

Chairs

• Sabine Doebel, University of Colorado, Boulder

• Jane Barker, Univ of Colorado - Boulder

Individual Presentations

• Relationships Between Children’s Daily Activities and the Development of Self-Directed Executive Function - Presenting Author: Jane Barker, Univ of Colorado - Boulder; Yuko Munakata, University of Colorado, Boulder

• A Neurobehavioral Study of the Impact of Television on Executive Function in Preschoolers - Presenting Author: Hui Li, Central China Normal University; Angeline Lillard, Univ of Virginia; Zongkui Zhou, Central China Normal University; Fuxing Wang, Central China Normal University

• The Role of Language in the Development of Conflict Detection and Executive Function: A Training Study - Presenting Author: Sabine Doebel, University of Colorado, Boulder; Philip David Zelazo, University of Minnesota

• Executive Function and the Classroom Environment: Consequences for Learning - Presenting Author: Karrie Elizabeth Godwin, Carnegie Mellon University; Anna V Fisher, Carnegie Mellon University