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Can Stimulus Valence Modulate Task-Switching Ability? A Pilot Study on Primary School Children
Executive functions and emotional processes follow a time-dependent development that reflects the brain’s anatomo-functional maturation. Though the assessment of these cognitive functions is largely examined, in children the role of emotions in the mental set-shifting is still rarely investigated. T...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9180860/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35681994 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19116409 |
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author | D’Aurizio, Giulia Tempesta, Daniela Saporito, Gennaro Pistoia, Francesca Socci, Valentina Mandolesi, Laura Curcio, Giuseppe |
author_facet | D’Aurizio, Giulia Tempesta, Daniela Saporito, Gennaro Pistoia, Francesca Socci, Valentina Mandolesi, Laura Curcio, Giuseppe |
author_sort | D’Aurizio, Giulia |
collection | PubMed |
description | Executive functions and emotional processes follow a time-dependent development that reflects the brain’s anatomo-functional maturation. Though the assessment of these cognitive functions is largely examined, in children the role of emotions in the mental set-shifting is still rarely investigated. The aim of this study was to assess how attention shifting can be modulated by the valence of emotional stimuli. To this end, sixty-two primary school children were tested with a new emotional task-switching paradigm obtained by manipulating the emotional valence and physical features of the stimulus pool. Thus, two tasks were alternatively presented: the Valence task and the Color task. Based on executive performance results, we found a lengthening of response times and a lower accuracy in the emotionally connoted task (Valence task), compared to the neutral task (Color task). The data demonstrate that the processing of emotional stimuli modulates the task-switching performance during development. These findings could help in the implementation of teaching strategies that can promote the development of executive functions and, therefore, functionally improve the overall academic performance of children. Finally, a better understanding of the developmental trajectories of executive functions can help neuropsychologists both in the early diagnosis and treatment of potential executive alterations. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9180860 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-91808602022-06-10 Can Stimulus Valence Modulate Task-Switching Ability? A Pilot Study on Primary School Children D’Aurizio, Giulia Tempesta, Daniela Saporito, Gennaro Pistoia, Francesca Socci, Valentina Mandolesi, Laura Curcio, Giuseppe Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Executive functions and emotional processes follow a time-dependent development that reflects the brain’s anatomo-functional maturation. Though the assessment of these cognitive functions is largely examined, in children the role of emotions in the mental set-shifting is still rarely investigated. The aim of this study was to assess how attention shifting can be modulated by the valence of emotional stimuli. To this end, sixty-two primary school children were tested with a new emotional task-switching paradigm obtained by manipulating the emotional valence and physical features of the stimulus pool. Thus, two tasks were alternatively presented: the Valence task and the Color task. Based on executive performance results, we found a lengthening of response times and a lower accuracy in the emotionally connoted task (Valence task), compared to the neutral task (Color task). The data demonstrate that the processing of emotional stimuli modulates the task-switching performance during development. These findings could help in the implementation of teaching strategies that can promote the development of executive functions and, therefore, functionally improve the overall academic performance of children. Finally, a better understanding of the developmental trajectories of executive functions can help neuropsychologists both in the early diagnosis and treatment of potential executive alterations. MDPI 2022-05-25 /pmc/articles/PMC9180860/ /pubmed/35681994 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19116409 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article D’Aurizio, Giulia Tempesta, Daniela Saporito, Gennaro Pistoia, Francesca Socci, Valentina Mandolesi, Laura Curcio, Giuseppe Can Stimulus Valence Modulate Task-Switching Ability? A Pilot Study on Primary School Children |
title | Can Stimulus Valence Modulate Task-Switching Ability? A Pilot Study on Primary School Children |
title_full | Can Stimulus Valence Modulate Task-Switching Ability? A Pilot Study on Primary School Children |
title_fullStr | Can Stimulus Valence Modulate Task-Switching Ability? A Pilot Study on Primary School Children |
title_full_unstemmed | Can Stimulus Valence Modulate Task-Switching Ability? A Pilot Study on Primary School Children |
title_short | Can Stimulus Valence Modulate Task-Switching Ability? A Pilot Study on Primary School Children |
title_sort | can stimulus valence modulate task-switching ability? a pilot study on primary school children |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9180860/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35681994 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19116409 |
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