articles by Angela Conejero
Executive attention (EA) encompasses a variety of attention mechanisms implicated in the control ... more Executive attention (EA) encompasses a variety of attention mechanisms implicated in the control of thoughts and behavior. The emergence of EA skills depends on the maturation of frontal brain structures. Evidence in the past years has shown that frontal brain structures related to EA are already functional in the first months of life and first signs of EA can be observed by the second half of the first year of life. Given the importance of EA to a wide range of developmental outcomes (e.g. academic and professional outcomes, socialization, psychological well-being, etc.), understanding early stages of development is of great interest for the promotion of EA and the prevention of EA-related deficits over the course of development. Despite its relevance, relatively little is known about the development of EA before the preschool years. This paper aims at providing a selective review of the existing literature about the early development of EA. We present the principal measures of EA for infants and toddlers available to date. We also review main findings on behavioral as well as brain mechanisms of EA in infancy and toddlerhood. Finally, we summarize research on early indicators of EA and its implication for the early detection of some developmental disorders.
AbstractError detection is one of the functions of the executive attention network, a brain syste... more AbstractError detection is one of the functions of the executive attention network, a brain system involved in executive control that includes the anterior cingulate cortex and other prefrontal regions. Despite the key role of this function in a wide range of life outcomes, very limited research has examined the early development of the network and whether its functional efficacy is related to environmental factors. Electrophysiological studies with adults have shown oscillatory activity in theta (4–7 Hz) range arising from medial frontal cortex that follows the detection of self-committed or observed errors. In the current study, we designed a novel experimental procedure that involved a familiarization phase with simple three-pieces puzzles followed by an experimental phase in which toddlers observed the puzzles being formed either correctly or incorrectly. Observation of incorrect configurations produced increased potentials in midline channels and greater power theta activity for both toddlers (n = 56) and adults (n = 14). In addition, socioeconomic status of the family in general, and parental education in particular, contributed to individual differences in the amplitude of the error-related signal and associated theta power in toddlers, indicating that children raised in lower SES families show poorer activation of the executive attention network. These data demonstrate the influence of environmental factors at the earliest stages of development of the executive attention network. Importantly, the results show that error-detection EEG signals can be used as neural markers of the initial development of executive attention, which can be of great help for the early detection of risk for developmental disorders involving deficits in this function.
Papers by Angela Conejero
Children
Effortful control (EC) is a dimension of temperament that encompass individual differences in sel... more Effortful control (EC) is a dimension of temperament that encompass individual differences in self-regulation and the control of reactivity. Much research suggests that EC has a strong foundation on the development of executive attention, but increasing evidence also shows a significant contribution of the rearing environment to individual differences in EC. The aim of the current study was to predict the development of EC at 36 months of age from early attentional and environmental measures taken in infancy using a machine learning approach. A sample of 78 infants participated in a longitudinal study running three waves of data collection at 6, 9, and 36 months of age. Attentional tasks were administered at 6 months of age, with two additional measures (i.e., one attentional measure and another self-restraint measure) being collected at 9 months of age. Parents reported household environment variables during wave 1, and their child’s EC at 36 months. A machine-learning algorithm wa...
Infant Behavior and Development
Children
This paper investigates the interplay between environmental factors (socioeconomic status (SES) a... more This paper investigates the interplay between environmental factors (socioeconomic status (SES) and parenting) and temperament in the development of inhibitory control (IC) at 2 years of age. We administered to toddlers (n = 59) a delay of gratification task which measures IC in the context of self-regulation. Parents reported their toddlers’ temperament, parenting strategies, and SES. We hypothesized that poorer IC would be associated with more reactive temperament, less effortful control, lower SES and inconsistent/coercive parenting practices. Finally, we explored the interaction between temperament, parenting and SES. We found that both coercive parenting and low-SES were negatively correlated to IC at the age of 2 years. Temperamental reactivity was unrelated to IC, whereas temperamental effortful control (EC) was positively associated with IC. Results revealed a moderation effect of EC on the influence of coercive parenting and SES in toddlers’ IC. Toddlers from lower SES back...
Endogenous visual attention orienting is early available from infancy. It shows a steady developm... more Endogenous visual attention orienting is early available from infancy. It shows a steady development during the preschool period towards monitoring and managing executive attention to optimize the interplay between environmental contingencies and internal goals. The current study aims at understanding this transition from basic forms of endogenous control of visual orienting towards the engagement of executive attention, as well as their association with individual differences in temperament and home environment. A total of 150 children between 2 and 4 years of age were evaluated in a Visual Sequence Learning task, measuring visual anticipations in easy (context-free) and complex (context-dependent) stimuli transitions. Results showed age to be a predictor of a reduction in exogenous attention, as well as increased abilities to attempt to anticipate and to correctly anticipate in complex transitions. Household disorganization predicted more complex correct anticipations, suggesting ...
Inhibitory Control (IC) is the ability to prevent prepotent responses when inappropriate. Longitu... more Inhibitory Control (IC) is the ability to prevent prepotent responses when inappropriate. Longitudinal research on IC development has mainly focused on early childhood and adolescence, while research on IC development in the first years of life is still scarce. In order to address this gap in literature, we explored the association between executive attention (EA) and elementary forms of IC in infancy and toddlerhood with individual differences IC later at 5 years of age. We conducted a five-wave longitudinal study in which children’s EA and IC (n=96) were tested at the age of 9 and 16-18 months, and at 2, 3 and 5 years. We expected that EA skills in infancy and toddlerhood would be related to better performance of children in IC tasks, together with a more mature inhibition-related brain functioning. Children performed a variety of age-appropriate EA and IC tasks in each wave measuring inhibition of attention, endogenous control of attention, inhibition of the response and conflict...
Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior, 2017
Developmental Science, 2016
Error detection is one of the functions of the executive attention network, a brain system involv... more Error detection is one of the functions of the executive attention network, a brain system involved in executive control that includes the anterior cingulate cortex and other prefrontal regions. Despite the key role of this function in a wide range of life outcomes, very limited research has examined the early development of the network and whether its functional efficacy is related to environmental factors. Electrophysiological studies with adults have shown oscillatory activity in theta (4-7 Hz) range arising from medial frontal cortex that follows the detection of self-committed or observed errors. In the current study, we designed a novel experimental procedure that involved a familiarization phase with simple three-pieces puzzles followed by an experimental phase in which toddlers observed the puzzles being formed either correctly or incorrectly. Observation of incorrect configurations produced increased potentials in midline channels and greater power theta activity for both toddlers (n = 56) and adults (n = 14). In addition, socioeconomic status of the family in general, and parental education in particular, contributed to individual differences in the amplitude of the error-related signal and associated theta power in toddlers, indicating that children raised in lower SES families show poorer activation of the executive attention network. These data demonstrate the influence of environmental factors at the earliest stages of development of the executive attention network. Importantly, the results show that error-detection EEG signals can be used as neural markers of the initial development of executive attention, which can be of great help for the early detection of risk for developmental disorders involving deficits in this function.
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articles by Angela Conejero
Papers by Angela Conejero