title: Moderate vagal withdrawal in 3.5-year-old children is associated with optimal performance on executive function tasks.
abstract: Vagal tone (measured via respiratory sinus arrhythmia, RSA) and vagal withdrawal (measured by decreases in RSA) have been identified as physiological measures of self-regulation, but little is known how they may relate to the regulation of cognitive activity as measured through executive function (EF) tasks. We expected that baseline measures of vagal tone, thought to be an indicator of attention, would correlate with EF performance. We also predicted that vagal withdrawal would allow for the reorientation of attention that is needed to succeed on EF tasks, but too much withdrawal would be detrimental. RSA measured at baseline was indeed related to EF performance in 220 3.5-year-old children, and those who exhibited a moderate decrease in RSA during the EF tasks outperformed children whose RSA decreased by too little or too much. These findings implicate vagal tone withdrawal as a psychophysiological measure of higher cognitive processes, most likely substantiated through increases in the levels of focused attention.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27402, USA. s_marcov@uncg.edu
authors.forename: Stuart
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Marcovitch
authors.forename: Janet
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Leigh
authors.forename: Susan D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Calkins
authors.forename: Esther M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Leerks
authors.forename: Marion
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: O'Brien
authors.forename: A Nayena
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Blankson
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D002675:Child, Preschool; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012927:Social Control, Informal; D013564:Sympathetic Nervous System / Q000502:physiology*; D014630:Vagus Nerve / Q000502:physiology*
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