title: The role of negative priming in preschoolers' flexible rule use on the dimensional change card sort task.
abstract: Four experiments examined the development of negative priming (NP) in 3-5-year-old children using as a measure of children's executive function (EF) the dimensional change card sort (DCCS) task. In the NP version of the DCCS, the values of the sorting dimension that is relevant during the preswitch phase are removed during the postswitch phase. The experiments showed that the NP effect observed in the DCCS decreased during the preschool years, and they clarified the circumstances in which NP occurs. Taken together, the findings suggest that the development of EF in early childhood consists in part in disinhibiting attention to information that has previously been suppressed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada. umueller@uvic.ca
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.forename: Anthony Steven
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Dick
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Gela
authors.forename: Willis F
authors.initials: WF
authors.lastname: Overton
authors.forename: Philip David
authors.initials: PD
authors.lastname: Zelazo
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect; D001288:Attention; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011581:Psychological Tests