title: Cognitive processing and motor execution in the lexical decision task: a developmental study.
abstract: We investigated lexical decision making in children and adults by analyzing spatiotemporal characteristics of responses involving a hand movement. Children's and adults' movement trajectories were assessed in three tasks: a lexical decision task (LDT), a pointing task that involved minimal cognitive processing, and a symbol task requiring a simple binary decision. Cognitive interference on motor performance was quantified by analyzing movement characteristics in the LDT and symbol task relative to the pointing task. Across age groups, movements in the LDT were less smooth, slower, and more strongly curved to the opposite response option, and these interference effects decreased steadily with age. Older children showed stronger interference effects than did adults, even though their reaction times were similar to adults' performance. No comparable effects were found in the symbol task, indicating that task characteristics such as response mapping and decision selection alone are not able to explain the developmental differences observed in the LDT. Our results indicate substantial overlap between cognitive processing and motor execution in the LDT in children that is not captured by computational models of visual word recognition and cognitive development.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany, sascha.schroeder@mpib-berlin.mpg.de.
authors.forename: Sascha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schroeder
authors.forename: Julius
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Verrel
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D006225:Hand; D006801:Humans; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*
references.citation: Psychon Bull Rev. 2012 Jun;19(3):513-20
references.pmid: 22419404
references.citation: Biol Psychol. 1997 Mar 21;45(1-3):241-61
references.pmid: 9083652
references.citation: PLoS One. 2008 Mar 05;3(3):e1728
references.pmid: 18320047
references.citation: Nature. 2009 Sep 10;461(7261):263-6
references.pmid: 19693010
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005 Jul 19;102(29):10393-8
references.pmid: 15985550
references.citation: Psychol Rev. 2004 Jan;111(1):159-82
references.pmid: 14756592
references.citation: J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 1995 Sep;21(5):1289-302
references.pmid: 8744966
references.citation: J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 1984 Jun;10(3):340-57
references.pmid: 6242411