Thirteen young adults (ages 21-25) and nine children (ages 7-11) were tested on a visual go/no-go task comparing response times (RTs), error rates, and amplitude and latency changes of error-related negativity (ERN). All experimental conditions were identical for both age groups. Results are consistent with the previous flanker task research showing an increase in ERN amplitude as children age. However, the present results indicate that the peak amplitude of ERN for 9-11 year old children is larger than that of 7-8 year old children, with no difference overall between young adults and children. ERN responses elicited by the flanker task continue to develop until late adolescence. Comparative results suggest that the visual go/no-go task may be more sensitive cognitive measure than the flanker task of mistakes made by children. Differences in time pressure to respond, complexity of the task, and feedback are discussed as possible explanations of differences in the two paradigms.

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The present experiment was designed to test the effects of interstimulus intervals between the response stimuli upon reaction time (RT) under the conditions of two fixed (10 sec and 20 sec) and two variable (5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, and 15 sec; 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 sec) intervals of eliminating the physical preparatory stimulus, and to monitor heart rate (HR) for analyzing the relationship between RT and HR. The results obtained showed that the 10 sec fixed interval condition was associated with a fastest RT, being interpreted as an optimal interval in this experiment. For each of the variable conditions the longer intervals tended to show faster RTs. Some positive correlation between RT and HR was obtained during the latter part of trials. This might be interpreted by Lacey's hypothesis. 'Die problem of optimal interval in RT was discussed in relation to the theory of classical conditioning.

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