Assessing Cognitive Inhibition in Emotional and Neutral Contexts in children

ZAMORA, ELIANA V.; VERNUCCI SANTIAGO; DEL VALLE, M.; INTROZZI ISABEL; RICHARD'S MARIA

Educational and Developmental Psychologist

Cambridge University Press

Lugar: United Kingdom; Año: 2020 vol. 37 p. 56 - 66

2059-0776

Different studies indicate that emotions can interfere with the efficacy of inhibitory control. However, understanding its impact requires considering that inhibition is not a unitary construct. Cognitive inhibition is the process responsible for attenuating and resisting the interference of thoughts, representations and memories that are irrelevant to the task at hand. Due to the relevance of emotional stimuli for survival, different studies have indicated that the performance of cognitive inhibition can vary depending on the context, i.e. in neutral or emotionally salient contexts. During the interval between 8 and 12 years old, the importance of this skill is rooted in the need of controlling reactions and stimuli which could be disruptive for learning. In this study, 395 children aged 8 to 12 years performed a 1-back visual task with emotional and neutral stimuli in order to assess cognitive inhibition in contexts with high and low emotional salience. The results support the validity of the task for the evaluation of cognitive inhibition. However, no significant differences were found depending on the context as expected. It is emphasized that these results constitute an approach to the problem of emotional content interference in children considering the multidimensional approach of inhibition.