title: The other side of cognitive control: can a lack of cognitive control benefit language and cognition?
abstract: Cognitive control refers to the regulation of mental activity to support flexible cognition across different domains. Cragg and Nation (2010) propose that the development of cognitive control in children parallels the development of language abilities, particularly inner speech. We suggest that children's late development of cognitive control also mirrors their limited ability to revise misinterpretations of sentence meaning. Moreover, we argue that for certain tasks, a tradeoff between bottom-up (data-driven) and top-down (rule-based) thinking may actually benefit performance in both children and adults. Specifically, we propose that a lack of cognitive control may promote important aspects of cognitive development, like language acquisition and creativity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of PennsylvaniaCenter for Advanced Study of Language, University of Maryland.
authors.forename: Evangelia G
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Chrysikou
authors.forename: Jared M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Novick
authors.forename: John C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Trueswell
authors.forename: Sharon L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Thompson-Schill
mesh_terms: D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language
keywords: Cognitive control; Cognitive flexibility; Creativity; Hypofrontality; Language comprehension; Language learning; Prefrontal cortex