Metacognitive Processes in Executive Control Development: The Case of Reactive and Proactive Control

Abstract

Young children engage cognitive control reactively in response to events, rather than proactively preparing for events. Such limitations in executive control have been explained in terms of fundamental constraints on children’s cognitive capacities. Alternatively, young children might be capable of proactive control but differ from older children in their meta-cognitive decisions regarding when to engage proactive control. We examined these possibilities in three conditions of a task-switching paradigm, varying in whether task cues were available before or after target onset. Reaction times, ERPs, and pupil dilation showed that 5-year-olds did engage in advance preparation, a critical aspect of proactive control, but only when reactive control was made more difficult, whereas 10-year-olds engaged proactive control whenever possible. These findings highlight meta-cognitive processes in children’s cognitive control, an understudied aspect of executive control development.

Costs and benefits linked to developments in cognitive control

“…The increased working memory demands (intermediate delay of 4 s in Experiment 1 vs. 8 s in Experiment 2) may have encouraged proactive control (as observed in Chevalier et al , in preparation), particularly for perseverators, who had more room to improve. In addition, perseverators using reactive control may have been speeded by practice from the distracted DMS, while some switchers may have been slowed by carry-over effects, such as retaining a less-efficient reactive approach.…”

“…However, switchers and perseverators showed similar use of visible proactive strategies in the more demanding working memory task of Experiment 2, which may indicate the importance of considering how proactive and reactive control are influenced by task demands as well as individual differences. More targeted measures of proactive control in children continue to be developed (Chatham et al , 2009; Chevalier et al , in preparation; Fisher, Thiessen, Godwin, Kloos & Dickerson, 2013), and should prove informative in future investigations.…”

“…Preschoolers tend to be more reactive, while 8-year-olds are more proactive (Chatham, Frank & Munakata, 2009). The period of 5 to 6 years old seems particularly important for this transition, involving a shift from primarily reactive control to a mixture of proactive and reactive control depending on individual differences and task demands (Chatham, Provan & Munakata, 2013; Chevalier, Curran & Munakata, in preparation). …”

NAS-50 and NAS-40: New scales for the assessment of self-control

“…First, we differentiate between reactive and proactive type of the self-control exertion (Braver, Gray, & Burgess, 2007;Chuderski, 2010;Chevalier, Martis, Curran, & Munakata, 2015;Criaud, Wardak, Ben Hamed, Ballanger, & Boulinguez, 2012). Reactive self-control amounts to the adjustment of one's own behavior to external requirements, such as demands or prohibitions.…”

Executive Function Development

“…Consistently, 5-year-olds respond faster and show event-related potential and pupil dilation markers of early cue processing when the early-presented task cue disappears before target onset to encourage cue-thentarget processing (Chevalier, Martis, Curran, & Munakata, 2015).…”