Emotional Modulation of the Ability to Inhibit a Prepotent Response During Childhood

Abstract

The present study examined the bottom-up influence of emotional context on response inhibition, an issue that remains largely unstudied in children. Thus, 62 participants, aged from 6 to 13 years old, were assessed with three stop signal tasks: one with circles, one with neutral faces, and one with emotional faces (happy and sad). Results showed that emotional context altered response inhibition ability in childhood. However, no interaction between age and emotional influence on response inhibition was found. Positive emotions were recognized faster than negative emotions, but the valence did not have a significant influence on response inhibition abilities.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the help of Albulëne Reçica and Maha Basbou in assessing the children who participated in this study. Development of the MacBrain Face Stimulus Set was overseen by Nim Tottenham and supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Early Experience and Brain Development.

The present work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Number 32000B0–113632).