Developing Adaptive Coordination of Executive Functions

项目摘要 儿童在执行功能（EF）方面表现出戏剧性的发展，目标导向的过程， 支持灵活的行为调整以应对不断变化的环境。例如，儿童早期- EF的发展形式是反应性的，或在飞行中，根据需要检索目标相关信息， 此刻随着发展，儿童变得越来越积极主动，或计划，保持目标相关 这些EF及其发展与以下利益相关： 认知、情感和行为，以及它们的损伤已经涉及临床疾病，包括ADHD， 自闭症强迫症精神分裂症和图雷特综合症鉴于这一重要成果的重要性， 研究集中于针对核心EF（如工作记忆）的开发和干预。 然而，环境基金是多种多样的，而不是单一的或通用的，每一种基金都有相对的成本和效益。 积极主动的环境要素形式为备灾带来了好处，但也付出了时间和精力方面的代价， 真的做点什么。同样，目标维持有助于保持任务，但当目标- 需要转移。这种权衡需要人们协调参与哪些EF，例如， 专注于一项任务直到完成，或者在几项任务中切换以在每项任务上取得进展。因此，在本发明中， 儿童EF的显著改善可能依赖于他们的自我导向，适应性协调的不同， EF形式，特别是当孩子获得独立并且必须自己决定要完成什么任务时 从他们不断扩大的剧目中挑选哪些EF，以及何时。此外，这种适应性协调 EF可以解释EF指标的表现和重要的生活结果之间的联系。 为了解决EF的这个关键但未充分探索的方面，我们测试了自我导向， EF形式的适应性协调（目标1），影响这种协调的因素（目标2），以及 儿童随时间推移所表现出的轨迹（目标3），以及它们与现实世界测量的关系。我们 通过横向和纵向研究调查这些过程，使用行为研究整合 通过生理测量，建立在我们实验室和其他人的理论和经验工作的基础上。研究 测试：1）幼儿，他们已经表现出一些适应性协调EF的能力，但可能依赖 更多的是从广泛的潜在方法库中进行试错过程抽样，2）年龄较大的儿童， 他们可能会学习特定任务的经验，从而在适应性协调中越来越有针对性 3）成年人，他们对EF的适应性协调在不同的环境中可能在一开始更具战略性。 环境，反映选择最适合当前需求的EF。我们还追踪儿童 纵向地，随着它们通过关键过渡窗口的进展。总之，这些研究将推动一个新的 理解增强适应性协调的EF在发展中的作用，并提供重要 更广泛的执行功能和功能障碍的理论和模型的限制和见解。

Project Summary Children show dramatic developments in executive functioning (EF), the goal-directed processes that support flexible adaptation of behavior in response to changing circumstances. For example, children's early- developing forms of EF are reactive, or on-the-fly, based on retrieval of goal-relevant information as needed in the moment. With development, children become increasingly proactive, or planful, maintaining goal-relevant information in anticipation of needing it. Such EFs and their development are associated with benefits to cognition, emotion, and action, and their impairment has been implicated in clinical disorders, including ADHD, autism, OCD, schizophrenia, and Tourette's syndrome. Given this significance for important outcomes, much research has focused on developments in and interventions targeting core EFs such as working memory. However, EFs are diverse rather than unitary or all-purpose, each with relative costs and benefits. Proactive forms of EF bring benefits to preparedness, but also costs in terms of time and effort required prior to actually doing something. Similarly, goal-maintenance can aid staying on task, but confers costs when goal- shifting is required. Such trade-offs require people to coordinate which EFs to engage when, for example, in focusing on one task until it is completed, or switching among several tasks to make progress on each. Thus, children's dramatic improvements in EF may rely upon their self-directed, adaptive coordination of distinct forms of EF, particularly as children gain independence and must determine on their own what tasks to take on, which EFs to engage from their expanding repertoire, and when. Moreover, this adaptive coordination of EFs could explain links between performance on EF measures and significant life outcomes. To address this critical but underexplored aspect of EF, we test developments in the self-directed, adaptive coordination of forms of EF (Aim 1), the factors influencing this coordination (Aim 2), and the trajectories that children show over time (Aim 3), and their relationship to real-world measures. We investigate these processes via cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, using behavioral studies integrated with physiological measures, building on theoretical and empirical work from our lab and others. The studies test: 1) young children, who have demonstrated some capacity for adaptive coordination of EFs, but may rely more on a trial-and-error process sampling from a broad repertoire of potential approaches, 2) older children, who may learn over experience with particular tasks to be increasingly targeted in their adaptive coordination of EFs, and 3) adults, whose adaptive coordination of EFs may be more strategic at the outset across different contexts, reflecting the selection of EFs that are best suited to current demands. We also track children longitudinally as they progress through a key transition window. Together, these studies will advance a new understanding of the role of increasingly adaptive coordination of EFs in development, and provide important constraints and insights for theories and models of executive function and dysfunction more broadly.