DEVELOPMENTAL NEUROPSYCHOLOGY, 28(2), 573–594

Copyright © 2005, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

The Development of Executive

Attention: Contributions to the
Emergence of Self-Regulation
M. Rosario Rueda
Departamento de Psicología Experimental
Universidad de Granada, Spain

Michael I. Posner and Mary K. Rothbart

Department of Psychology
University of Oregon

Over the past decade, developmental studies have established connections between
executive attention, as studied in neurocognitive models, and effortful control, a tem-
perament system supporting the emergence of self-regulation. Functions associated
with the executive attention network overlap with the more general domain of execu-
tive function in childhood, which also includes working memory, planning, switch-
ing, and inhibitory control (Welch, 2001). Cognitive tasks used with adults to study
executive attention can be adapted to children and used with questionnaires to trace
the role of attention and effortful control in the development of self-regulation. In this
article we focus on the monitoring and control functions of attention and discuss its
contributions to self-regulation from cognitive, temperamental, and biological per-
spectives.

Self-Regulation refers to the many processes by which the human psyche exercises
control over its functions, states, and inner processes. It is an important key to how
the self is put together. Most broadly, it is essential for transforming the inner animal
nature into a civilized human being. (Vohs & Baumeister, 2004, p. 1)

The ability to control one’s behavior plays an important role in the development of
personality and the socialization of the child. Self-regulation has been related to

Correspondence should be addressed to M. Rosario Rueda, Departamento de Psicología

Experimental, Universidad de Granada, Campus de Cartuja s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain. E-mail:
[email protected]
574 RUEDA, POSNER, ROTHBART

emotionality, delay of gratification, compliance, moral development, social com-

petence, empathy, adjustment, and cognitive and academic performance (Eisen-
berg, Smith, Sadovsky, & Spinrad, 2004). In addition, self-regulation is thought to
be the key mediator between genetic predispositions, early experience, and adult
functioning (Fonagy & Target, 2002).
Over the past decade, studies have attempted to integrate the study of attention
and self-regulation (Posner & Rothbart, 1992, 1998). During the 1st year of life,
attentional orienting appears to act as a distress regulator (Harman, Rothbart, &
Posner, 1997). In successive months, infants experience a transition from a more
reactive or stimulus-driven form of attentional selection toward more controlled
attention (Rothbart, Posner, & Boylan, 1990). This transition supports the volun-
tary control of action needed to regulate one’s behavior (Posner & Rothbart, 1998).
Although attention and self-regulation have been studied within two very different
research traditions, we have made an effort to integrate these bodies of literature by
considering hypotheses about the specific neural mechanisms involved in self-reg-
ulation and their connection to executive attention and effortful control (Rueda,
Posner, & Rothbart, 2004). In this article, we analyze the cognitive, temperamen-
tal, and biological systems supporting attentional control and its contributions to
the emergence of self-regulation. In addition, we report our recent efforts to trace
and foster the development of this aspect of attention in young children.

EFFORTFUL CONTROL

Links between attention and self-regulation have been found in temperament re-
search. In these studies, individual differences are commonly measured using tem-
perament or personality questionnaires. Effortful control consistently emerges
from factorial analysis of temperament questionnaires, with temperament scales
loading on the factor including shifting and focusing attention, inhibitory control,
perceptual sensitivity, and low-intensity pleasure. Effortful control allows individ-
uals to regulate their behavior in relation to current and future needs, as in situa-
tions that involve coping with immediate punishment or avoiding instant reward in
the face of a more rewarding situation in the future.
Rothbart, Ahadi, and Hershey (1994) showed that 6- and 7-year-olds high in
effortful control were high in empathy and guilt/shame and low in aggressiveness.
Eisenberg and her colleagues found that 4- to 6-year old boys with good attentional
control tend to deal with anger by using nonhostile verbal methods rather than
overt aggressive methods (Eisenberg, Fabes, Nyman, Bernzweig, & Pinulas,
1994). In line with these data, the work by Kochanska and colleagues over the past
decade has shown that effortful control plays an important role in the development
of conscience. In studies of temperament and conscience, the early internalization
of moral principles appears to be facilitated in fearful preschool-age children, es-
 EXECUTIVE ATTENTION 575

pecially when their mothers use gentle discipline (see Kochanska, 1991, 1995,
1997). In addition, internalized control is greater in children who are high in
effortful control (Kochanska, Murray, & Harlan, 2000; Kochanska, Murray,
Jacques, Koenig, & Vandegeest, 1996).
Individual differences in effortful control are also related to aspects of meta-
cognitive knowledge, such as theory of mind (i.e., knowing that people’s behavior
is guided by their beliefs, desires, and other mental states; Carlson & Moses,
2001). Tasks that require inhibitory control are correlated with performance on
theory of mind tasks even when other factors such as age, planning skills, and re-
ceptive vocabulary are factored out (Carlson, Moses, & Claxton, 2004).
All these data point to the idea that effortful control serves as the basis for the
development from more reactive to more self-regulative behavior. Systems of
effortful control may contribute to this development by providing the attentional
flexibility required to manage negative affect, consider potential actions in light of
moral principles, and coordinate reactions that are under voluntary control
(Rothbart & Rueda, 2005).

VOLUNTARY CONTROL OF ACTION

Selecting information and controlling thoughts and actions have been a major
function of attention from the earliest theoretical models (Broadbent, 1958; James,
1890). Attentional selection has an important adaptive role in individuals’ interac-
tions with the environment. Even simple behaviors (e.g., reaching for a pencil ly-
ing on a table among other objects) require selecting the stimulus toward which the
action is directed. Orienting attention over a scene and selecting the object or loca-
tion to attend to is necessary for carrying out desired actions. Likewise, attention
can be directed internally to coordinate memories, thoughts, and emotions.
The attentional system exerts its influence by modulating the functioning of sys-
tems involved in information processing. Many of the studies of the regulatory as-
pect of attention involve modulation of sensory systems. Studies using functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and cellular recording have demonstrated that
a number of brain areas such as the superior parietal lobe and temporal parietal junc-
tion play a key role in modulating activity within primary and extrastriate visual sys-
tems when attentional orienting occurs (Corbetta & Shulman, 2002; Desimone &
Duncan, 1995). In addition, other neuroimaging studies have suggested that the reg-
ulatory effects of attention apply just as well to brain areas involved in processing the
semantics of words, storing information in memory, and generating emotions such
as fear and sadness (Posner & Raichle, 1994, 1998).
Attention can be automatically driven by external stimulation or endogenously
controlled by the goals and wishes of the individual. Norman and Shallice (1986)
developed a cognitive model for distinguishing between automatic and controlled
576 RUEDA, POSNER, ROTHBART

processes. According to their model, psychological-processing systems rely on a

number of hierarchically organized schemas of action and thought used for routine
actions. These schemas are automatically triggered and contain well-learned re-
sponses or sequences of actions. However, a different mode of operation involving
the Supervisory Attention System is required when situations call for more care-
fully elaborated responses. These are situations that involve (a) novelty, (b) error
correction or troubleshooting, (c) some degree of danger or difficulty, or (d) over-
coming strong habitual responses or tendencies.
Data from multiple domains have supported the existence of three brain net-
works that contribute to attention (Posner & Dehaene, 1994; Posner & Petersen,
1990). These networks carry out the functions of alerting, orienting, and executive
control. Alerting is the most elementary aspect of attention and describes the state
of wakefulness and arousal of an organism; orienting is the selection of informa-
tion from sensory input; and executive control involves the mechanisms for resolv-
ing conflict among thoughts, feelings, and responses. The three brain networks
have been shown to differ in their functional anatomy, the circuitry of their compo-
nent operations, and the neurochemical modulators that influence their efficiency
(Posner & Fan, in press). Among these networks, executive control is the network
involved in the volitional and controlled aspect of the attentional system. Its func-
tions include resolving into appropriate actions the kinds of situations described by
Norman and Shallice as requiring cognitive control (Posner & DiGirolamo, 1998).
What are the cognitive mechanisms by which the voluntary control of behavior
is achieved, and how is the study of these mechanisms approached in cognitive
neuroscience? We address these questions in the next sections.

MECHANISMS OF CONTROL

Conscious Detection
According to Posner and Raichle (1994), the executive attention network serves
the function of

bringing an object into conscious awareness. … [Detection is further defined as]

more than the conscious recognition that an object is present. It may also include rec-
ognition of the object’s identity and the realization that the object fulfills a sought-af-
ter goal … . In this sense, detection is the conscious execution of an instruction. (pp.
168–169)

Conscious detection plays a special role in selecting a target stimulus from

among alternatives and engages attention in a way that resists interference by other
signals. One way to study detection is by presenting target stimuli among
 EXECUTIVE ATTENTION 577

distractors. Imaging studies have shown that, independent of the type of target
stimulus (color, motion, form, etc.), particular brain areas are specifically activated
by detected targets as contrasted to passive viewing of the same type of stimuli
(Corbetta & Shulman, 2002).
A type of detection particularly interesting for action monitoring is the detection
of erroneous responses. Detecting errors is one of the functions attributed to the Su-
pervisory Attention System in the Norman and Shallice’s (1986) model. A behav-
ioral indicator of error detection and correction is the slowing of reaction time imme-
diately following the commission of an error. An electrophysiological component,
the error-related negativity (ERN), is also consistently recorded following the par-
ticipant’s detection of an error (Gehring, Gross, Coles, Meyer, & Donchin, 1993).
Further, the distribution of the activity associated with the ERN on the scalp has been
linked to activity originating in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC; van Veen &
Carter, 2002), a brain region that, as we discuss later, is related to executive attention.

Inhibition
Inhibitory mechanisms have been widely discussed in cognitive psychology as in-
volved in attention, memory, and language processes (Dagenbach & Carr, 1994).
In the attentional domain, inhibition has been studied in connection to both the ori-
enting and the executive functions of attention (Fuentes, 2004) and therefore ap-
pears to be essential to attentional selection and executive control. The negative
priming phenomenon—increased reaction time to stimuli that have been previ-
ously ignored—is an example of the influence of inhibitory processes on
attentional selection. In a widely accepted interpretation of negative priming, the
effect is accounted for by an inhibitory process that acts on the representation of
the ignored information, allowing the system to focus on information relevant for
current action (Houghton & Tipper, 1994).
Inhibition is also required for withholding responses that, although prompted
by current stimulation, might not be appropriate. The most common way to mea-
sure response inhibition is by using tasks in which participants respond to one
stimulus but are required to inhibit their response when a related stimulus is pre-
sented (Go/No-Go tasks). Under Go/No-Go instructions, promptness to respond
can be manipulated by varying the proportion of Go trials or by presenting a
No-Go signal at varying time intervals after the Go stimulus (the Stop-signal Para-
digm). The efficiency of inhibition is measured behaviorally by the number of
omissions and false alarms, but it can be also measured using physiological indi-
ces, such as muscular preparation or brain activity.

Conflict Resolution
Monitoring and resolving conflict between incompatible responses also requires
voluntary and attentive control of action (Posner & DiGirolamo, 1998). Conflict
578 RUEDA, POSNER, ROTHBART

resolution involves selecting a subdominant object or response in the presence of a

competing dominant object or response. Cognitive tasks involving conflict have
been used extensively to measure the efficiency with which control of action is ex-
erted (Botvinick, Braver, Barch, Carter, & Cohen, 2001).
Conflict can be induced in many ways. A very popular way is the Stroop task.
The original form of this task required participants to report the color of ink in
which a word was written, when the color word (e. g., red) might conflict with the
color of ink (e.g., blue). In general, Stroop-like tasks induce conflict by requiring a
response to a stimulus that is incongruent with the one suggested by the stimulus.
For example, in the Spatial Conflict task (Gerardi-Caulton, 2000), the requirement
is to respond to the identity of a stimulus regardless of its spatial compatibility with
the matching response key. The Flanker task (Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974), another
widely used task for studying executive attention, induces conflict by presenting
additional stimulation in the display, suggesting a response incompatible with the
correct one. A recent study carried out by Fan, Flombaum, McCandliss, Thomas,
and Posner (2003) showed that these three types of tasks (Stroop color, Spatial
Conflict, and Flanker task) activate a common set of brain regions (although to dif-
ferent extents) as well as areas unique to each task, suggesting a common underly-
ing process implemented according to the specific requirements of the task.

THE NEURAL SYSTEM FOR ATTENTIONAL CONTROL

Anatomy and Circuitry

Many of the tasks described earlier have been used together with neuroimaging
techniques to localize the brain regions related to executive attention. Data from
many studies have shown that situations requiring attentional control activate a
neural network including the ACC and lateral prefrontal areas (Posner & Fan, in
press). Other studies have attempted to dissociate different operations involved in
the control of action, identifying brain areas within the executive network respon-
sible for these operations (Casey, Durston, & Fossella, 2001). In fMRI studies, the
ACC was found to be involved in the detection and monitoring of conflict, whereas
lateral prefrontal areas were shown to be mainly related to processes required to re-
solve the conflict (Botvinick, Nystrom, Fissell, Carter, & Cohen, 1999). Detection
and resolution of conflict have also been anatomically dissociated from selection
of the relevant information, which involves areas of the superior parietal cortex and
superior frontal gyrus (Casey et al., 2000).
The main node of the executive attention network, the ACC, is part of the limbic
system and is strongly connected to structures involved in processing emotions. In
a meta-analysis of imaging studies, the dorsal section of the anterior cingulate was
 EXECUTIVE ATTENTION 579

found to be activated in cognitive conflict tasks such as variants of the Stroop task
(Bush, Luu, & Posner, 2000). An adjacent area of the anterior cingulate was found
to be activated by emotional tasks and emotional states. The two divisions also
seem to interact, so that when the cognitive division was activated, the affective di-
vision tended to be deactivated and vice versa, suggesting the possibility of recip-
rocal effortful and emotional controls of attention (Bush et al., 2000). Cingulate
activity as shown by fMRI was also found to be related to the instruction of regulat-
ing sexual arousal induced by watching videos (Beauregard, Levesque, &
Bourgouin, 2001). In a different study, cognitive reappraisal of photographs pro-
ducing negative affect showed a correlation between extent of cingulate activity
and the reduction in negative affect (Ochsner, Bunge, Gross, & Gabrieli, 2002).
These results show a role for this anatomical structure in regulating limbic activity
related to emotion and provide evidence for a role of the cingulate as a part of the
network controlling affect.
A number of studies have used the high temporal resolution of event-related po-
tentials (ERPs) to assess the timing of action-monitoring processes with adults.
One of the ERP indexes associated with executive control, the N2, is a preresponse
negative deflection in the ERP at around 300 msec poststimulus, which appears to
be larger (more negative) for trials involving more conflict. The N2 is observed
over parietal and frontal leads and has been obtained with both flanker (Kopp, Rist,
& Mattler, 1996; van Veen & Carter, 2002) and Go/No-Go tasks (Jackson, Jack-
son, & Roberts, 1999). In both situations, the N2 has been associated with the with-
holding of a prepotent, but inappropriate, response. In a recent ERP study with a
Flanker task, van Veen and Carter (2002) linked the scalp distribution of activity
associated with the N2 to a source of activation originating at the caudal portion of
the ACC, supporting a connection between this electrophysiological index and the
executive attention network.

Neurochemistry
The ventral tegmental area, a source of dopamine (DA) neurons, strongly projects
to the brain areas involved in executive attention. In addition, all types of DA re-
ceptors are expressed within the cingulate cortex. DA appears to be an important
modulator of performance on tasks that entail executive functions and involve
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Diamond & Goldman-Rakic, 1989). Some studies
have shown evidence of DA modulation of prefrontal function in the rat (Seamas,
Floresco, & Phillips, 1998). In addition, administering DA D1 receptor agonists
and antagonists appears to respectively enhance and impair the accuracy level of
performance of rats in a task that requires detecting brief visual targets (Granon et
al., 2000). In humans, tasks that involve conflict and require inhibition also appear
to be more sensitive to DA levels than tasks with a stronger working memory com-
580 RUEDA, POSNER, ROTHBART

ponent, although both types of tasks rely on lateral prefrontal structures (Diamond,
Briand, Fossella, & Gehlbach, 2004).

Genetics
Links between the anatomy of executive attention and the chemical modulators in-
volved in its functioning have provided a tool for studying the genetic basis of this
network. Pioneering studies following this approach have shown attentional pro-
cesses related to cognitive control to be determined in part by the biological pro-
cesses expressed through particular dopamine-related genes (Goldberg & Wein-
berger, 2004).
Recently, Fan, McCandliss, Sommer, Raz, and Posner (2002) developed the At-
tention Network Test (ANT). This task provides a measure for each of the three an-
atomically defined attention networks: alerting, orienting, and executive attention.
The ANT can be used as a phenotype of the efficiency of the attentional functions.
In a small-scale twin study using the ANT, the executive network showed
high-enough heritability (0.89) to justify the search for specific genes (Fan, Wu,
Fossella, & Posner, 2001). In a second study, DNA from cheek swabs of partici-
pants who performed the ANT was used to examine candidate differences in gene
polymorphisms related to dopamine. This process showed at least two candidate
genes that were related to the executive network to a greater degree than to overall
performance as measured by RT and accuracy (Fossella, Posner, Fan, Swanson, &
Pfaff, 2002). One of these genes was the dopamine D4 receptor gene, widely re-
ported to be associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and
with the personality trait of sensation seeking (Swanson et al., 2000). The other
was the Monoamine oxidase A gene, related to both dopamine and
norepinepherine. In a third study, Fan, Fossella, Sommer, and Posner (2003)
showed that these two genes were also related to differences in brain activation
within the anterior cingulate gyrus while performing a conflict task.
The Catechol-O-Methyltransferase (COMT) gene, involved in the degrada-
tion of dopamine, has also been related to prefrontal executive processes (Egan
et al., 2001). A particular variant of the COMT gene (the Met-Met genotype) re-
sults in greater levels of dopamine at the synapse due to a lower degradation
rate. Some studies have found the Met-Met COMT gene variant to relate to
better performance in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (Egan et al., 2001; Joober
et al., 2002). Diamond et al. (2004) found that children with the Met-Met variant
performed better in a conflict task than age-matched children with different
polymorphisms of the COMT gene. It is of interest that this genotype did not
differentiate between the groups in another task that relied more on work-
ing-memory processes.
 EXECUTIVE ATTENTION 581

NEUROCOGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
OF EXECUTIVE ATTENTION

So far we have discussed temperamental, cognitive, and biological aspects that

play a role in the development of self-regulation. Different assessment tools can be
used to investigate the development of these aspects. Individual differences in the
efficiency with which effortful control is exerted in daily life can be assessed using
temperament questionnaires. Laboratory tasks from adult studies that have been
adapted to children can be used to isolate specific measures of executive attention.
In addition, these cognitive tasks can be used online with techniques for brain
function assessment to study the biological processes supporting behavioral matu-
ration. At the Attention and Temperament Laboratory in the University of Oregon,
we have followed this approach to trace the development of executive attention.
Developmental studies have stressed the relative lack of executive control in in-
fants (Ruff & Rothbart, 1996). However, a sign of the control of cognitive conflict
is found at the end of the 1st year of life. Infants younger than 12 months fail to
search for an object hidden in a location when previously trained to reach for the
object in a different location. After the 1st year, children develop the ability to in-
hibit the prepotent response toward the trained location and successfully reach for
the object in the new location (Diamond, 1991).
At 2 years of age and older, children are able to perform simple tasks in which
their reaction time can be measured. In one study, toddlers were asked to perform a
task that induces conflict between the identity and the location of an object (Spatial
Conflict task; Gerardi-Caulton, 2000). Between 2 and 4 years of age, children pro-
gressed from an almost complete inability to carry out the task to relatively good
performance. Although 2-year-old children tended to perseverate on a single re-
sponse, 3-year-olds performed at high accuracy levels, although, like adults, they
responded more slowly and with reduced accuracy to incompatible trials. In this
study, performance of children in the Spatial Conflict task was related to tempera-
ment as reported by parents. Consistent with a similar study conducted with adults
(Derryberry & Reed, 1998) where high performance was associated with self-re-
ported attentional control, and low trait anxiety, children who performed well were
also described by their parents as more skilled at attentional shifting and focusing,
less impulsive, and less prone to frustration reactions. These findings are also con-
sistent with the idea that effortful attention, as measured through questionnaire or
laboratory methods, may help individuals constrain negative forms of emotion.
The Visual Sequence Learning (VSL) task can be used to assess implicit and
attentional forms of learning in children as young as a few months. In the VSL
task, a series of cartoons are presented on three different computer monitors in a
predictable sequence. In unambiguous sequences, each location is followed by one
and only one subsequent location (e.g., 123123 … , with numbers referring to the
582 RUEDA, POSNER, ROTHBART

monitor in which the stimulus appears). Ambiguous associations refer to se-

quences where a location is followed by one of two or more different locations, the
particular location depending on its place within the sequence (e.g., 121312 … ).
Learning of ambiguous sequences requires the monitoring of context and, in adult
studies, has been shown to depend on lateral prefrontal cortex (Keele, Ivry, Mayr,
Hazeltine, & Heuer, 2003). Previous studies showed that ambiguous associations
within sequences of events are not acquired at above-chance levels until about 2
years of age (Clohessy, Posner, & Rothbart, 2001).
We recently conducted a study using the VSL task to further explore the relation
between cognitive and temperamental measures of executive control in 2- to
3-year-old children (Rothbart, Ellis, Rueda, & Posner, 2003). In this study, we also
used a touch screen version of the Spatial Conflict task and asked the parents to
complete the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ; Rothbart, Ahadi, Hershey,
& Fisher, 2001). Children were divided into three groups according to their age:
24–25 months, 30–31 months, and 36–37 months. In consonance with previous
data, children in all three groups were able to anticipate the correct locations above
chance in ambiguous sequences of the VSL task, therefore demonstrating learning
of this type of sequence. In addition, we found a great increase in the ability to per-
form the Spatial Conflict task between the 2- and 3-year-old groups (see upper part
of Table 1). At 30 months, when toddlers were able to perform the Spatial Conflict
task more successfully, we found that performance on this task was significantly
related to the toddlers’ ability to learn ambiguous associations in the VSL para-
digm. In addition, in two of the groups, interference in the Spatial Conflict task
correlated negatively with temperamental effortful control. For the youngest
group, effortful control was also related to the percentage of completed trials, and
children in the group that did not complete the task were significantly lower in
effortful control and higher in negative affect than those completing sufficient tri-
als for analysis (Rothbart et al., 2003). Altogether these data support the existence
of a link between attentional efficiency as evaluated by cognitive tasks and par-
ent-reported measures of effortful control.
Another form of action monitoring is the detection and correction of errors. In
our study, reaction times following an error in the Spatial Conflict task were 200
msec longer than those following a correct trial for 30-month-old children, and
over 500 msec longer at 36 months, indicating that children were noticing their er-
rors and using them to guide performance in the next trial. However, no evidence
of slowing following an error was found at 24 months (Rothbart et al., 2003). A
similar result with a different time frame was found when using a version of the
Simple Simon game. In this task, children are asked to execute a response when a
command is given by one stuffed animal while inhibiting responses commanded
by a second animal (Jones, Rothbart, & Posner, 2003). Children of 36 to 38 months
were unable to inhibit their response and showed no slowing following an error,
but at 39 to 41 months, children showed both an ability to inhibit and a slowing of
 TABLE 1
Development of Conflict Resolution Assessed With Different Conflict Tasks

Congruent Trials Incongruent Trials Conflict Effect

Age Task RT % Correct RT % Correct RT % Correct Study Reference

2 Spatial conflict 3,476 69.1 3,378 53.9 –98 –15.2 Rothbart, Ellis, Rueda, and
Posner (2003)
2½ Spatial conflict 2,489 80.8 3,045 57.8 556 –23.0 Rothbart, Ellis, Rueda, and
Posner (2003)
3 Spatial conflict 2,465 90.1 3,072 80.3 607 –9.8 Rothbart, Ellis, Rueda, and
Posner (2003)
4 Flanker (child ANT)a 1,490 89.4 1,913 77.1 424 –13.0 Rueda, Posner, Rothbart, and
Davis-Stober (2004)
6 Flanker (child ANT) 890 92.0 1,005 76.4 115 –15.6 Rueda, Fan, et al. (2004)
7 Flanker (child ANT) 828 94.6 891 93.9 63 –0.7 Rueda, Fan, et al. (2004)
8 Flanker (child ANT) 791 95.0 862 95.3 71 0.3 Rueda, Fan, et al. (2004)
9 Flanker (child ANT) 724 98.1 791 96.5 67 –1.6 Rueda, Fan, et al. (2004)
10 Flanker (child ANT) 624 98.7 693 96.6 69 –2.1 Rueda, Fan, et al. (2004)
Adults Flanker (child ANT) 473 99.5 534 97.9 61 –1.6 Rueda, Fan, et al. (2004)

Note. Conflict effects are calculated by subtracting congruent from incongruent conditions. In all the studies, RT data are the means (across participants) of
the median RT (per participant, in milliseconds).
aThe stimuli used in this study were larger than in the Rueda, Fan, et al. (2004) study also using the child ANT, resulting in slightly smaller conflict scores.

583
584 RUEDA, POSNER, ROTHBART

reaction time following an error. These results suggest that between 30 and 39
months, children greatly develop their ability to detect and correct erroneous re-
sponses and that this ability may relate to the development of inhibitory control.
As discussed earlier, resolving conflict from competing stimulation also re-
quires attentional control. We have recently adapted the ANT (Fan et al., 2002)
for use with children as young as 4 years of age (Rueda, Fan, et al., 2004; see
Figure 1). In this task, a row of five fish appears in the center of the screen, and
the child’s job is to help in “feeding” the middle fish by pressing the key corre-
sponding to the direction in which the middle fish is pointing. On half the trials,
the flanker fish are pointing in the same direction as the middle fish (congruent
trials); on the other half, the flanker fish are pointing in the opposite direction
(incongruent trials). The time to resolve conflict, calculated by subtracting the
reaction time for congruent trials from the reaction time for incongruent trials, is
a measure of conflict resolution. In a series of studies using this task, we have
observed considerable development of conflict resolution between 4 and 7 years
of age, but a striking consistency in performance after age 7 to adulthood (see
Table 1).
To examine the brain mechanisms underlying differences in conflict resolution
between children and adults, we have recently conducted an ERP study in which
we used the fish flanker task with 4-year-old children and adults (Rueda, Posner,

FIGURE 1 Schematic representation of the Flanker task in the Child ANT.

 EXECUTIVE ATTENTION 585

Rothbart, & Davis-Stober, 2004). Characteristics of the ERP make this technique
amenable to children of all ages. In our study, we used a high-density system of
electroencephalography (Tucker, 1993). This procedure allows evaluation of dif-
ferences between children and adults in the time course of brain activations related
to the task and provides a wide sampling of the distribution of activation over the
scalp. As expected, we found the N2 effect for adults over the mid-frontal leads.
The children’s data also showed a larger negative deflection for the incongruent
condition at the mid-frontal electrodes. Compared to adults, this effect had a larger
size, had greater amplitude, and was extended over a longer period of time (see
Figure 2).
Differences between children and adults in ERP amplitude have been related to
brain size and skull thickening. Differences in the latency of components, however,
may be related more to the large differences between adults and children in reac-
tion time (431 msec vs. 1,614 msec) and conflict resolution times (30 msec vs. 424
msec). Whereas the frontal effect was evident for adults at around 300 msec
posttarget, children did not show any effect until approximately 550 msec after the
target. In addition, the effect was sustained over a period of 500 msec before the

FIGURE 2 Adults’ and 4-year-old children’s ERPs obtained with the Child ANT at frontal
(Fz), frontal-central (Fcz) and parietal (Pz) leads. Notice adult versus child differences in the
scale of the graphs.
586 RUEDA, POSNER, ROTHBART

children’s responses, in contrast with only 50 msec in the case of adults. The differ-
ences observed between children and adults over the frontal channels differed from
other components observed at mid-parietal channels. For both children and adults,
we found a greater positivity for incongruent trials over mid-parietal leads. For
adults, this effect was observed at approximately 400 msec posttarget, in the time
window of the P300, whereas it was more delayed in the case of children (between
800 and 1,100 msec posttarget). The P300 is thought to be an index of stimulus
evaluation (Coles, Gratton, Bashore, Ericksen, & Donchin, 1985). This parietal ef-
fect could reflect developmental differences in the difficulty of evaluating the dis-
play depending on the congruence of surrounding flankers, whereas the frontal ef-
fect could reveal differences in the time course of conflict resolution.
Another important difference between 4-year-old children and adults was the
distribution of effects over the scalp (see Figure 3). In adults, the frontal effects ap-
pear to be focalized on the midline, whereas in children the effects were observed
mostly at prefrontal sites and in a broader number of channels, including the
midline and lateral areas. In addition, the effect on the P3 appears to be
left-lateralized in the adult data but lateralized to the right side in the children. The
focalization of signals in adults as compared to children is consistent with
neuroimaging studies conducted with older children, where children appear to ac-
tivate the same network of areas as adults when performing similar tasks, but the
average volume of activation appears to be remarkably greater in children com-
pared to adults (Casey, Thomas, Davidson, Kunz, & Franzen, 2002; Casey et al.,
1997; Durston et al., 2002). Altogether, these data suggest that the brain circuitry

FIGURE 3 Adults and children’s scalp topographic distributions of ERPs associated with
congruent (C) and incongruent (I) conditions, and the conflict effect (I-C) at time points when
significant effects (see Figure 2) were found.
 EXECUTIVE ATTENTION 587

underlying executive functions becomes more focal and refined as it gains in effi-
ciency. This maturational process involves not only greater anatomical specializa-
tion but also reducing the time these systems need to resolve each of the processes
implicated in the task.

PLASTICITY

Connections between self-regulation and the executive attention network place

some emphasis on the biological processes underpinning the efficiency of control
systems. However, the role of experience in brain development is not to be ne-
glected (Bavelier & Neville, 2002; Neville & Bavelier, 1999). Examples of brain
plasticity as shown by training-induced increases in performance can be found in
both children and adults. Several training oriented programs have resulted in im-
proved executive control in patients with specific brain injury. The use of Attention
Process Training (APT) has led to specific improvements in executive attention in
tasks quite remote from those that have undergone training (Sohlberg,
McLaughlin, Pavese, Heidrich, & Posner, 2000). Other studies suggest that the ef-
fects of training may depend on first establishing a minimum level of alerting and
orienting capacities (Sturm, Willmes, Orgass, & Hartje, 1997). The APT has also
proven successful in training attentional abilities in children with ADHD (Kerns,
Esso, & Thompson, 1999; Semrud-Clikeman, Nielsen, & Clinton, 1999). With
normal adults, training with video games has been shown to produce better perfor-
mance on a range of visual attention tasks (Green & Bavelier, 2003).
We have tested whether specific attention training during the development of
executive attention in 4 year olds can influence the efficiency with which this
network is activated (Rueda, Rothbart, McCandliss, Saccamono, & Posner,
2005). We have designed a set of computerized training exercises to help pre-
school children develop their executive attention skills. The program begins with
training the child to control the movement of an animated cat on a computer
screen by using a joystick. Other exercises involve prediction of where an ani-
mated figure will move given its initial trajectory, retention of information for a
matching to sample task, and the resolution of conflict. The exercises were de-
signed to be completed in five 45-min sessions conducted over a 2- to 3-week
period. Behavioral and electrophysiological measures of executive attention
(Child ANT; Rueda, Fan, et al., 2004), general intelligence (Kaufman Brief In-
telligence Test [K-BIT]; Kaufman & Kaufman, 1990), and temperament (CBQ;
Rothbart et al., 2001) were used in assessment sessions conducted before and af-
ter training. Children were randomly assigned to an experimental group that un-
derwent training or to a control group that did not. The experimental group
showed more adultlike conflict scores following training than did the control
group. Although some or all of this effect might have been due to differences in
588 RUEDA, POSNER, ROTHBART

the pretest, we also found that following training, the experimental group was
the only group showing a pattern in the N2 component of the ERPs similar to the
one shown by adults (see Figure 4; Rueda et al., 2005).
The training also produced significant increases in overall IQ, mostly due to in-
creasing the score in the Visual Matrices scale measured by the K-BIT. Other
forms of attention training for children with ADHD have also improved perfor-
mance on abstract reasoning as measured by Raven’s Progressive Matrices
(Klingsberg, Forssberg, & Westerberg, 2002), suggesting that training of attention
may benefit cognitive functioning extending over a range of tasks. The fact that
training on executive attention may result in improvement of general intelligence
is not very surprising, considering their common anatomies (Duncan et al., 2000).

FIGURE 4 Comparison of the ERPs of adults and the trained and control (nontrained) groups
of 4-year-old children involved in the attention training study. All ERPs were obtained while
participants were performing the Child ANT. Notice adult versus child differences in the scale
of the graphs.
 EXECUTIVE ATTENTION 589

Although these results need to be replicated and extended, they suggest that the
brain mechanisms associated with attentional control can be improved by training
and that this improvement produces a benefit in behavioral measures of compe-
tence. Given the connection between attention and self-regulation, plasticity of the
neural system underlying executive attention opens a window for fostering
self-regulation in young children. In our study, the short time period elapsing be-
tween the pre- and postassessment sessions did not allow for examining changes in
reported temperament scores related to effortful control. Studies specifically test-
ing the benefits of training of attention on the ability of children to control their be-
havior remain to be done.

CONCLUSION

In cognitive models, attention has been traditionally involved in the control of in-
tended actions. In this sense, attentional control has been identified as an important
domain in self-regulation (Posner & Rothbart, 1998; Rueda, Posner, & Rothbart,
2004). With the emergence of cognitive neuroscience, numerous studies have
combined the use of simple but theoretically grounded cognitive tasks with
neuroimaging techniques and have greatly extended our understanding of the neu-
ral system supporting attentional control. Conflict tasks (e.g., Flanker, Stroop, and
Spatial Conflict tasks) have been widely used to study this form of control. A net-
work of brain areas, referred to as the executive attention network, is primarily ac-
tive in tasks that involve conflict resolution. This network includes the ACC and
lateral prefrontal cortex.
We have used conflict tasks adapted to children to study the development of ex-
ecutive attention. In our studies, we have combined the use of laboratory tasks with
parent-reported questionnaires and with techniques for assessment of brain func-
tion amenable to young children. The ability to deal with conflict in young chil-
dren appears to relate to parent-reported measures of effortful control, supporting
the connection between executive attention and self-control skills. We have found
considerable improvement in the ability to resolve conflict between 2 and 5 years
of age, and continuous improvement up to 7 years, when children appear to reach
the adult level of performance, at least when using the Child ANT (see Table 1).
Consistent with the much greater difficulty for children to resolve conflict, we
have found longer latencies and sustained conflict effects on children’s evoked po-
tentials compared to adults. It is of interest that the pattern of electrophysiological
activity seems to be susceptible to modulation through attention training. This re-
sult shows the potential of cognitive and behavioral training for fostering brain
processes related to attentional control. Considering executive attention as a sys-
tem for the voluntary control of action, the benefits of training attention could ex-
tend to greater cognitive and emotional regulation of children’s behavior.
590 RUEDA, POSNER, ROTHBART

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Most of the research conducted by the Attention and Temperament Laboratory, at

the University of Oregon, was supported by Grant JSMF20002075 from the James
S. McDonnell Foundation and by a National Institutes of Health Grant
#MH43361. Dr Rueda’s work was partially supported by a grant from La Caixa
Foundation—U.S. Program.

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