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Inhibitory Control During Emotional Distraction Across Adolescence and Early Adulthood
Author(s) -
CohenGilbert Julia E.,
Thomas Kathleen M.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/cdev.12085
Subject(s) - distraction , psychology , developmental psychology , inhibitory control , late childhood , young adult , response inhibition , task (project management) , cognition , cognitive psychology , neuroscience , management , economics
This study investigated the changing relation between emotion and inhibitory control during adolescence. One hundred participants between 11 and 25 years of age performed a go‐nogo task in which task‐relevant stimuli (letters) were presented at the center of large task‐irrelevant images depicting negative, positive, or neutral scenes selected from the I nternational A ffective P icture S ystem. Longer reaction times for negative trials were found across all age groups, suggesting that negative but not positive emotional images captured attention across this age range. However, age differences in accuracy on inhibitory trials suggest that response inhibition is more readily disrupted by negative emotional distraction in early adolescence relative to late childhood, late adolescence, or early adulthood.