A cross-cultural investigation of inhibitory control

This is an uncorrected version of the article. The published version can be found at Child Neuropsychology, DOI: 10.1080/09297049.2013.879111

A cross-cultural investigation of inhibitory control and fluency in relation to anxiety symptoms in Romanian and Russian preschoolers Lavinia Cheie1, Aleksander Veraksa2, Yuri Zinchenko2, Alexandra Gorovaya2, & Laura Visu-Petra1

1

Developmental Psychology Lab, Department of Psychology, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania 2 Faculty of Psychology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia

To cite this article please use: Cheie, L., Veraksa, A., Zinchenko, Y., Gorovaya, A., & Visu-Petra, L. (2014). A cross-cultural investigation of inhibitory control, generative fluency, and anxiety symptoms in Romanian and Russian preschoolers. Child Neuropsychology, (ahead-of-print), 1-29. DOI: 10.1080/09297049.2013.879111

Abstract The current study focused on the early development of inhibitory control in 5- to 7-year-old children attending kindergartens in two Eastern-European countries, Romania and Russia. These two countries share many aspects of child rearing and educational practices, previously documented to influence the development of inhibitory control. Using the Lurian-based developmental approach offered by the NEPSY battery, the study aimed to contribute to cross-cultural developmental neuropsychology by exploring (1) early interrelationships between subcomponents of inhibitory control (response suppression and attention control) and generative fluency (verbal and figural) in these two cultures; as well as (2) the predictive value of external factors (culture and maternal education) and individual differences (age, gender, nonverbal intelligence, trait anxiety) on inhibitory control and fluency outcomes in children from both countries. First, findings in both culture samples suggest that even at this young age, the construct of inhibitory control cannot be considered a unitary entity. Regarding inhibition and fluency performance variations, differences in maternal education were not predictive of either inhibitory control or fluency scores. However, children’s attention control performance varied as a function of culture, and the direction of these cultural effects differed by whether the target outcome involved performance accuracy versus efficiency as an output. Findings also confirmed the previously documented intensive developmental improvement in preschoolers’ inhibitory control during this period, influencing measures of response suppression, and particularly attention control. Finally, the results further stress out the importance of individual differences effects in trait anxiety on attention control efficiency across cultures.

INTRODUCTION Throughout their phylogenetic and ontogenetic trajectory, human brain functions are actively shaped by the dynamic interaction between genes, brain, and culture. The neuropsychological approach has traditionally acknowledged the interdependence between brain, mind, and sociocultural context (e.g., Ardila, 1995; Fletcher-Jansen, Strickland, & Reinolds, 2000). The emerging field of cultural neuroscience (see the recent review by Han et al., 2013) is dedicated to exploring crosscultural differences in the very neural substrates of various psychological processes such as cognition, emotion, and motivation. However, studies in child neuropsychology have not yet paralleled the pro- gress made in the understanding of adult and elderly neuropsychological functioning in a cross-cultural context (see Byrd, Arentoft, Scheiner, Westerveld, & Baron, 2008, for a review). Reviewing the scarce literature in the field, the authors of the abovementioned review acknowledge the ‚paucity of empirical investigations examining the impact of cultural heritage on child neuropsychological test performance‛ (Byrd et al., 2008, p. 219), but also the lack of a well-articulated theoretical framework that could systematically guide future research in the area. The current study relies on a neuropsychological-assessment approach derived from the tradition of Luria (1966, 1973), as it provides both an integrative theoretical perspective on the interplay between brain, behavior, and culture (Kotik-Friedgut, 2006), as well as the methodological tools to assess their interactions during early development (Korkman, 1999). The systemic-dynamic approach, proposed by Luria to reflect the brain organization of higher mental functions, considers cognitive processes as functional systems carried out by interconnected subprocesses in a dynamic fashion and modulated by the interaction with the environment (Luria, 1973). For instance, children’s capacity to focus attention and control their behavior is continuously shaped by their interaction with adults (e.g., via verbal regulation; Luria, 1961) being gradually internalized and becoming the building blocks of higher order cognitive control mechanisms known as executive functions. This is a process by which ‚culturally mediated motives and behavior programs are transmitted to the child‛ (Korkman, 1999, p. 90) via one’s interactions with parents and educators. Although the specific functional organization of the brain as presented by Luria (1973) has been consistently modified and extended (e.g., Christensen, Goldberg, & Bougakov, 2009), his emphasis on the comprehensive and systematic evaluation of subcomponent processes involved in higher order mental functions has been inspirational for Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment (NEPSY) Battery (Akhutina & Pylaeva, 2011; Korkman, 1999). This is substantially reflected by the development of one of the most widely used batteries in the field, the NEPSY-I (Korkman, Kirk, & Kemp, 1998; and the revised version NEPSY-II, 2007). As one of the main authors argues (Korkman, 1999), the construction of the NEPSY subscribes to the systemic dynamic theoretical framework proposed by Luria (1973) because of the following: (a) it adheres to Luria’s view of cognitive processes as dynamic functional systems carried out by interconnected subcomponents, which is reflected in the very choice of NEPSY domains, as well as in the multiple tasks chosen to tap various subcomponents of each domain; (b) it captures the dynamic developmental aspects of attention and behavioral control as formed by internalized verbal regulation; (c) it attempts to identify primary and secondary deficits that might be responsible for the observed impairments in complex tasks, following the Lurian-based principle of syndrome analysis. The current study endorses the systemic dynamic approach provided by this developmental neuropsychology battery in order to

evaluate the early development of inhibitory control by assessing its various subcomponents across two cultures, Romanian and Russian. Multiple similarities (and interactions) in Romanian and Russian cultures in their geopolitical and socioeconomic development have been present during the last decades (e.g., Connolly, 2012), which allow us to anticipate commonalities in child-rearing ideas and practices, such as those related to the emphasis and valuing of self-control and discipline. However, there is surprisingly little systematic research to back up these intuitions. Even after the fall of the communist regime, there was a strong emphasis on obedience, viewed by Russian parents and educators as a child socialization goal (Hart, Nelson, Robinson, Olsen, & McNeilly-Choque, 1998; Ispa, 1995; Saar & Niglas, 2001). However, more recent research reveals a greater emphasis on individualistic values (e.g., acceptance of individual differences, spontaneity, and independence; Ispa, 2002), although collectivistic values are still very important for preschool teachers (Butovskaya & Demianovitsch, 2002). Similarly, in the rest of the Eastern Europe, child-rearing practices have been changing gradually since the breakdown of communism (Robila, 2004). In Romanian mother-child dyads, although individualistic values are reinforced by current parental practices, there is still a great emphasis on the transmission of collectivistic values (Friedlmeier & Trommsdorff, 2011). Based on the potential similarities between parental child-rearing ideas and practices, we did not expect to obtain significant cultural differences regarding the interrelations among subcomponents of inhibitory control or in terms of absolute levels of inhibitory control. Inhibitory control generally refers to the ability to resist internal or external distractors in favor of an alternative response required by situational demands (Diamond, 2013). Although it is considered an ‚independent and interdependent‛ dimension of executive functioning (Huizinga, Dolan, & van der Molen, 2006; Miyake et al., 2000), inhibitory control is by no means a unitary construct (see Nigg, 2000, for a full taxonomy). Some developmental studies have dissociated between inhibitory tasks that impose a delay and inhibitory tasks that require an active conflict (e.g., Carlson & Moses, 2001). Another salient distinction, although less frequently used in the developmental literature (see Espy & Bull, 2005, for a notable exception), is between response suppression, which refers to simply withholding a prepotent (typically motor) response, and attention control or cognitive inhibition, which involves inhibiting an internally represented rule/response set that interferes with the ability to engage and implement a new rule/response (Diamond, 2013; Espy & Bull, 2005; Friedman & Miyake, 2004). Results with young children have shown that performance on these two types of inhibitory control tasks develops at distinct rates, with response suppression maturing early, attention control showing a more protracted developmental course, and with small- to-modest positive correlations between the two (Espy & Bull, 2005; Klenberg, Korkman, & Lahti-Nuuttila, 2001; Nichelli, Scala, Vago, Riva, & Bulgheroni, 2005; Visu-Petra, Benga, & Miclea, 2007). Although inhibitory control is a universal feature of the human mind (Ardila, 2008; Diamond, 2013), there is some preliminary evidence of the enculturating role of parental and educational beliefs and practices that shape its trajectory. Cross-cultural research suggested that enhanced parental control beliefs and practices specific to collectivist cultures are a potential candidate in explaining Asian children’s superior performance on inhibitory control tasks, which are found when comparing Chinese or Korean to North American preschoolers (Lan, Legare, Ponitz, Li, & Morrison, 2011; Oh & Lewis, 2008; Sabbagh, Xu, Carlson, Moses, & Lee, 2006). Although there is such cross-cultural variation in the absolute levels of inhibitory control, relations among inhibitory components could be similar across cultures, considering their strong neurological/genetic basis (Friedman et al., 2008), as well as their universal evolutionary

value (Ardila, 2008). To our knowledge, there are only two cross-cultural studies that have used a battery of inhibitory control tasks (Chasiotis, Kiessling, Hofer, & Campos, 2006; Sabbagh et al., 2006) and have reported relatively similar associations between components of inhibitory control across cultures. The studies also reported moderate support for the dissociation between delay and conflict tasks (Olson et al., 2011, also used three conflict tasks but did not report intertask correlations), with a tendency for collectivistic countries to present better performances on delay as compared to conflict measures (Chasiotis et al., 2006). However, to our knowledge, the response suppression versus attention control distinction has not yet been followed cross-culturally. The present study aims to introduce multiple tasks designed to assess both of these subcomponents of inhibitory control and to investigate their cross-cultural (in)variance and dissociation within each culture. Aside from exploring the possible cultural influences upon children’s executive functioning development, mother’s level of education was also introduced as a potential predictor of children’s outcomes, as some studies (e.g., Ardila, Rosselli, Matute, & Guajardo, 2005) suggest that parental education significantly impacts children’s executive functions (in 5- to 14-year-olds). Yet, the literature on the effect of socioeconomic status in general, and on maternal education in particular, is rather mixed for the preschool period (see Lawson, Hook, Hackman, & Farah, 2014, for a recent review of available evidence). Aside from tasks assessing specific inhibitory processes, verbal and figural measures of fluency were added to our battery in order to evaluate generative fluency, a complex aspect of executive functioning that relies on the ability to inhibit previously generated responses and to strategically produce new responses within a limited timeframe (Lezak, Howieson, & Loring, 2004). Verbal fluency in particular, evaluating child’s ability to generate words in response to a category cue (e.g., ‚animal‛), is based on a linguistic and an ideational component, involving semantic validation, clustering, switching between subcategories, error monitoring, and strategy use (Hurks et al., 2010). This ability develops gradually with strategic search and clustering beginning during late preschool years and progressing throughout midchildhood to adolescence (Hurks et al., 2010; Visu-Petra et al., 2007). Figural fluency tasks rely on the generation of novel designs starting from a pre-existing visual structure, and have been shown to involve executive functions such as inhibition, shifting, self-regulation, and self-monitoring (Baron, 2004). However, while traditional figural fluency tests require the generation of abstract designs (e.g., the Design Fluency subtest from the NEPSY), we were interested in using a measure that also assessed ideational fluency, namely the tendency to freely generate ideas and associations, including unusual or original ones, in response to task demands (Wallach, 1985). This has been considered an important indicator of creative ability or potential (Feldhusen & Goh, 1995). The development of creative competencies represents an explicit objective of early education reforms in both Romania and Russia (World Data on Education, 7th ed., 2010/2011). We aimed to explore the extent to which individual differences in inhibitory control (themselves possibly impacted by cultural practices) would be related to young children’s figural fluency. Studies with adults have yielded mixed findings, suggesting that either high levels of creative figural thinking are negatively related to inhibitory skills, due to an inability to filter out internal and external irrelevant stimuli (Carson, Peterson, & Higgins, 2003) or, the corollary, that it is positively correlated with impulsive symptoms, such as in the case of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; White & Shah, 2006). However, there is also evidence suggesting that highly creative individuals have intact inhibitory skills (Green & Williams, 1999;

Stavridou & Furnham, 1996) or are even less susceptible to interference in Stroop-like tasks (Gamble & Kellner, 1968; Golden, 1975). With regards to children, there is some preliminary evidence for a negative association between inhibition and creativity during the school-age period (Healey & Rucklidge, 2006; Scibinetti, Tocci, & Pesce, 2011) but, to our knowledge, there is no research regarding early correlations between these abilities in preschoolers. One individual differences variable that could be involved in modulating inhibitory control performance from early childhood is trait anxiety. According to the Attentional Control Theory (ACT; Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007), high anxious individuals recruit additional resources in their cognitive performance because they need to counteract the interference induced by their anxiety-related worries. Therefore, their performance is disrupted, sometimes in terms of effectiveness (accuracy) but mostly in terms of efficiency (resources invested in solving the task, for example, response time or mental effort). A growing body of evidence (see Berggren & Derakshan, 2013, for a recent review) identifies anxiety-linked deficits in executive performance, especially on tasks with high inhibition and shifting demands. Despite this sizeable literature focusing on adult populations, there is very limited and inconclusive evidence of an anxiety-linked inhibition impairment in the nonclinical child population (e.g., Muris, van der Pennen, Sigmond, & Mayer, 2008; but see Livingston, Stark, Jennings, & Haak, 1996; Mueller et al., 2012, for studies on pediatric anxiety). There is also some contradictory evidence suggesting that superior (especially faster) inhibitory control is actually linked to higher levels of internalizing symptoms in 6- to 12-year-olds (Kooijmans, Scheres, & Oosterlaan, 2000). Caregiving practices also seem to play a role in predicting internalizing symptoms, although their impact might be independent from individual differences in children’s inhibitory control (Kooijmans et al., 2000). In Romanian adolescents, ratings of maternal psychological control have been linked to higher levels of internalizing problems and child withdrawal (Robila & Krishnakumar, 2006; Roper, George, Nelson, Yorgason, & Poulsen, in press). Indirect links between collectivistic values reinforced by Russian preschool teachers (e.g., empathy, cooperation, and obedience rated among the highest socialization values in the Butovskaya & Demianovitsch, 2002, study) and children’s higher levels of anxiety/ social withdrawal have been proposed but not directly investigated. Absolute levels of anxiety and internalizing symptoms during childhood years have been found to be significantly higher in both Romanian (Benga, Ţincaş, & Visu-Petra, 2010; Rescorla et al., 2012) and Russian cultures (Carter, Grigorenko, & Pauls, 1995; Goodman, Slobodskaya, & Knyazev, 2005) than those reported by Western samples. However, parental/teacher reports are thought to be biased by distinct cultural norms for children’s behavior (Weisz, Chaiyasit, Weiss, Eastman, & Jackson, 1995). A direct comparison between internalizing symptoms in Romanian and Russian children has not yet been conducted. The present study offers such a comparison using a scale designed to identify the frequency and intensity of specific anxiety symptoms in preschoolers (specific to generalized anxiety, social anxiety, separation anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and physical injury fears). Current Study The current study aimed to contribute to cross-cultural developmental neuropsychology (a) by adding relevant data regarding early interrelationships between

subcomponents of inhibitory control (response suppression and attention control) and generative fluency across two cultures (Romanian and Russian) and (b) by exploring potential predictors of these two dimensions of executive functioning in Romanian and Russian 5- to 7-year-olds. However, we must stress the fact that it was not in our intention to ‚stereotype cultures‛, especially considering the limited sample in both size and representativity, but instead to explore the universality of theoretical models across cultures (e.g., Olson et al., 2011). The chosen 5- to 7-year developmental period is crucial for cognitive improvement, as children undergo intensive progresses in all aspects of executive functioning during this interval, being therefore named the ‚5 to 7-year shift‛ in executive functions development (White, 1970, as cited in Welsh, Pennington, & Groisser, 1991). Hence, the first aim of the study was to explore cultural similarities and differences in the relations between subcomponents of inhibitory control (response suppression and attentional control) and generative fluency (verbal and figural/ideational) in 5- to 7-yearold children. We focused on investigating within- and between-domain associations in inhibitory control subcomponents (response suppression and attention control) and fluency measures. Based on the limited data assessing inhibitory control or fluency and their predictors (i.e., parental control) across the two cultures, we did not have compelling reasons to expect significant cultural differences in the interrelationships among various subcomponents. Within each sample, we expected response suppression and attention control measures, respectively, to be related. Also, based on the limited literature regarding the relationship between inhibitory control and generative fluency in older children, we anticipated a negative relationship between these two domains to be already visible in preschoolers. The second general aim was to explore the predictive value of external factors (maternal education and culture) and individual differences (in age, gender, nonverbal intelligence, and trait anxiety) on the multiple measures assessing inhibitory control and generative fluency. In this respect, we had no empirical or theoretical justification to anticipate culture-related variations or the direction of such potential differences between the Romanian and Russian samples. However, considering previous crosscultural studies on other children populations that have identified culture as a significant predictor of inhibitory control, it was considered a direction worth exploring for the first time in these two Eastern-European countries. Since there are mixed findings in the literature regarding the effects of maternal education (e.g., Lawson et al., 2014) on executive functioning development within this early developmental window, we also explored the impact of this variable on children’s inhibitory control and fluency outcomes. With respect to individual differences effects, we expected age to have a greater role on measures of attention control, compared to those of response suppression. More specific, due to the fact that performance on response suppression measures has been shown to mature by the age of 6 (Diamond, 2013), attention control and fluency measures were expected to still display stronger developmental effects, reflected in a stronger influence of age. Considering mixed findings regarding the influence of gender (Bjorklund & Kipp, 1996) and nonverbal intelligence (Welsh et al., 1991) on inhibitory control, no specific hypotheses were advanced regarding their impact. Finally, based on the predictions of the ACT, anxiety was expected to negatively impact especially measures of inhibitory efficiency, affecting the amount of resources (response time) that children invested in their responses.

METHOD Research Design In order to explore cultural and individual differences in inhibitory control development, we conducted a matched-samples design in which samples of 5- to 7-year-old preschoolers1 from Romania and Russia did not differ in culturally independent variables such as age, sex distribution, and nonverbal intelligence scores. Inhibition control was assessed using age-appropriate tests included in the NEPSY battery (Korkman et al., 1998, 2007), a widely used NEPSY for children based on the systematic assessment approach proposed by Luria (1966, 1973). From the NEPSY-I (Korkman et al., 1998), we used the Visual Attention and Knock and Tap subtests, while the Auditory Attention, Response Set, Inhibition, Word Generation, and the Statue subtests were used following the NEPSY-II (Korkman et al., 2007) procedures. NEPSY-I was adapted for the Romanian culture for commercial use; hence, Romanian translations were only needed for the Inhibition test (included in the NEPSY-II battery only), while Russian translations were required for all NEPSY subtests. However, since the current investigation focused on nonverbal inhibitory control tasks, translations were only needed for the task instructions. In this respect, forward and subsequent backward translations were employed in both countries (for the Inhibition test in Romania). Consequently, researchers from both countries compared the forward and backward versions and decided upon the most accurate and similar form of the translated instructions.

Participants Parents of 5- to 7-year-olds attending kindergarten in Romania and Russia received a written description of the study and its procedure, and were asked to give their written parental agreement. From the original sample who received our invitation for the study (i.e., 177 potential participants), approximately 80% of parents agreed for their child to participate. Hence, the full sample of this study consisted in 143 children recruited from metropolitan areas in Romania and Russia (74 from Romania, 69 from Russia). Mothers who approved their children’s participation were also asked to complete a form requiring the demographic information, which also included exclusion criteria such as neurological or psychological disorders. None of the mothers reported such disorders. Out of the full sample, a total of 12 children could not be included due to either extended missing data (i.e., on more than half of the inhibition tests) or differences in Raven intelligence scores lying at a considerable distance (more than two standard deviations) from the normally distributed data. Specifically, from the Romanian sample, 7 participants were excluded from subsequent analyses: 3 based on their Raven intelligence scores (more than two standard deviations bellow the mean) and 4 children due to incomplete data (more than 50% missing data). From the Russian sample, 5 children were excluded from subsequent analyses: 2 based on their Raven intelligence scores (more than two standard deviations over the mean) and 3 children due to incomplete data (more than 50% missing data). Hence, the final sample comprised 131 preschoolers aged between 5.1 and 7.3 years (65 girls; mean age = 74.7 months; SD = 7.49). 1 Although preschool education in many countries finishes by the age of 6, in both Romania and Russia children attend kindergarten until 7 years of age. During their last preschool year, they attend School Preparation Classes (World Data on Education, 7th ed., 2011).

Romanian children were recruited from two public kindergartens in Cluj-Napoca, the second largest city in Romania. The final sample consisted in 67 preschoolers aged between 5.1 and 7.3 years old (37 girls, mean age = 75.5 months; SD = 7.21). Two fathers from the Romanian sample were of Hungarian origin, but the only language spoken at home was Romanian. Hence, all participants were monolingual Romanian-speaking children. Russian children were recruited from a public kindergarten in Moscow. The final sample consisted of 64 monolingual Russian-speaking children between 5.3 and 7.2 years old (36 boys, mean age = 74 months; SD = 7.77). All participants from this sample were Russian-speaking children of Russian origin. Parents from both countries received a written description of the study and were asked to sign the informed consent after their questions had been clarified. Other than the parental informed consent, the child’s verbal assent was also obtained prior testing. Procedure For the study, two public kindergartens in Cluj-Napoca and one public kindergarten in Moscow were contacted and asked for participation. Kindergartens in both countries were similar in terms of organization, routines, and schedule: Children are divided into groups by their age range (20–25 children/group), they attend kindergarten five days a week (10 months per year) and have their arrival time before eight in the morning. Children of parents who gave their written consent (N = 143) were tested individually in a quiet room located at their kindergartens. Three master students from the Romanian university and three graduate research assistants from the Russian university were trained in specific task administration, during three to four sessions. All trainees had a translated experimenter script and, prior to task administration, they were repeatedly evaluated by members of the research team, who ensured that both countries used the exact same procedure. Tasks were administered throughout two sessions on different days and lasting for approximately 25–35 minutes each. Kindergartens in both countries had similar schedules (arrival time before eight in the morning), and task administration took place during the mornings before their afternoon nap. The administration order was fixed and, by alternating types of task requirements, was meant to prevent loss of concentration and to maintain interest in the tasks. Hence, the first session included the Colored Progressive Matrices test, Auditory Attention and Response Set, Picture Completion Torrance subtest, and the Statue. The second session consisted of Visual Attention, Word Generation, Knock and Tap, and Inhibition tasks. Measures Demographic data (age, gender, maternal education, clinical problems of the child) were first collected via a form that parents willing to participate in the study were asked to fill in. Mothers in both countries were required to choose the appropriate answer considering their highest level of education (their last educational degree): (a) secondary school, (b) high school, or (c) university and postgraduate education. Nonverbal intelligence was evaluated via the culture-fair Colored Progressive Matrices test (Raven, Raven, & Court, 1998) designed to be suitable for young children. This version consists of 36 individual patterns, and the total number of correct responses

provides an intelligence measure for each child. The test was used also to match the two samples on levels of nonverbal intelligence. Trait anxiety was assessed via parental report on the Spence Preschool Anxiety Scale (Spence, Rapee, McDonald, & Ingram, 2001), a widely used measure adapted from the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS; Spence, 1997) to suit younger children and built in accordance with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) categories. Both countries used a translated and adapted form of the Spence Preschool Anxiety Scale; the Romanian team had this version already available for Romanian population (Benga et al., 2010), while the Russian team of researchers translated and adapted the scale for Russian population and had the backtranslation validated by the authors. The scale consists in 28 anxiety items, five nonscored posttraumatic stress disorder items, and another open-ended (nonscored) item. Each parent rated the concordance between the child’s behavior and the one described in each item on a 5-point scale. The parental ratings of the children’s anxiety symptoms generated a total score that was used as the measure of each child’s trait-anxiety level. Measures of Inhibitory Control Response Suppression. The Statue subtest evaluates response suppression, requiring motor persistence when several nonverbal distractors are introduced. Children are required to stand in a ‚statue‛ position, refraining from any body movements or vocalizations over a 75-second interval, during which preset distractors are introduced. A 2-point score is attributed for inhibiting any response over each 5-second interval, and a 1-point score for displaying one inappropriate response. The maximum score is 30. Knock and Tap is a classical nonverbal Go/No-Go test that evaluates response suppression of immediate motor responses triggered by visual stimuli that conflict with previous verbal directions (Klenberg et al., 2001). During the first part of the test, children are required to knock on the table when the examiner taps and vice versa; the second part requires children to shift to a new set of responses, by tapping with the side of the fist when the examiner knocks and vice versa but also to inhibit any motor response when the examiner taps. The total number of correct responses (out of 30) determined the test score. The Auditory Attention (AA) subtest represents the first part of the Auditory Attention and Response Set test, a complex inhibition task that measures the child’s ability to selectively attend verbal stimuli and to respond to them by performing or refraining to perform a certain motor response. In this subtest, children only have to react to a certain stimulus (i.e., select the red square when hearing the word ‚red‛) and to inhibit responses to all other stimuli (e.g., when hearing the word ‚blue‛); therefore, it consists of a measure of simple response suppression. A 1-point score is attributed for each correct response occurring within a 2-second interval from hearing the stimulus, while responding after this interval or producing an incorrect response is coded as an error. The number of correct responses provided the measure of performance (maximum score is 30). Attention Control. The Response Set (RS) subtest is the second part of the Auditory Attention and Response Set NEPSY test. During task unfolding, children are required to shift response sets and to regulate a response according to matching and contrasting auditory stimuli (i.e., select the yellow square when hearing the word ‚red‛

and vice versa, and also select the blue square when hearing the word ‚blue‛); hence, it represents an attention control/cognitive inhibition measure. A 1-point score is attributed for each correct response occurring within a 2-second interval after hearing the stimulus; responding after this interval or producing an incorrect response is coded as an error. The number of correct responses provided the measure of performance (maximum score is 36). Visual Attention, a timed, cognitive inhibition NEPSY subtest, is a more basic visual search task, designed to measure selective attention for the target stimuli while resisting distracting similar information. Despite the simplicity of the demands, the proof of an early maturation of performance on this task (Visu-Petra et al., 2007; Welsh et al., 1991), and given the role of attentional control in the visual search process and following the classification by Espy and Bull (2005), this task was considered an attention control task. Children are required to select items that match the target stimuli (i.e., cats) on a page containing both targets and distractors. Children receive a score of 1 for each correctly selected target (out of 20). Visual attention efficiency was computed by dividing the total time taken to complete the task per total accuracy of response. Although Klenberg et al. (2001) preferred an index of accuracy over response time as a measure of efficiency, we chose to focus on the reverse, considering that accuracy reached ceiling levels (both for the Visual Attention and the Inhibition test) and that response time was more variable and easier to be linked to individual differences in anxiety. The Inhibition subtest of the NEPSY-II is a timed cognitive inhibition task designed to measure children’s ability to inhibit automatic responses in favor of alternative responses (explicitly linked by the authors to the seminal Stroop procedure; Stroop, 1935). During task unfolding, children are asked to shift response sets and to regulate their verbal response according to contrasting visual stimuli (i.e., name a square stimulus a ‚circle‛ and vice versa for shapes and name the opposite direction an arrow is pointing for the arrows stimuli). Children received a score of 1 for each correctly named item (maximum score of 80), and completion time per accuracy provided an inhibition efficiency index. Verbal Processing Speed. Verbal processing speed was assessed via the Naming condition of the Inhibition subtest (NEPSY-II; Korkman et al., 2007). During the Naming task unfolding, children are required to simply name the shape of items displayed in a series of black and white circles and squares and, respectively, to name the direction of arrows pointing either upwards or downwards (the stimuli being identical to those used in the Inhibition condition). Children received a score of 1 for each correctly named item (maximum score of 80), and completion time per number of correct responses provided the children’s naming efficiency index.

Verbal and Ideational Fluency Verbal Fluency. The semantic part of the Word Generation NEPSY subtest (Korkman et al., 2007) was designed to evaluate children’s ability to generate words in response to a category cue. Hence, for a 1-minute interval, children are required to generate words to a semantic category (i.e., animals and food/drinks, respectively). The total number of correct and distinct words generated the test score.

INHIBITORY CONTROL IN ROMANIAN & RUSSIAN CHILDREN

Figural Fluency. The Picture Completion subtest of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (Torrance, 1974, 2008) was designed to measure ideational fluency, as children are given 10 ‚unfinished paintings‛ and are required to finish and entitle them within a 10-minute interval. The total number of finished items (maximum of 10) provided the figural fluency scores. RESULTS Analytic Approach In order to address our research questions regarding potential cultural and individual differences effects during the 5- to 7-year preschool interval, several analyses were conducted. First, collected information was scanned for missing data and an algorithm for replacing such naturally occurring missing values was introduced. Second, preliminary analyses were conducted in order to investigate children’s performance accuracy at an overall level, as well as potential differences between the Romanian and Russian groups regarding age, nonverbal intelligence scores, sex distribution, mothers’ level of education, and trait anxiety. Third, intertask correlations were employed in order to reach our first aim—to investigate early interrelationships between subcomponents of inhibitory control and fluency across the two cultures. Lastly, the second aim of exploring potential predictors of preschoolers’ inhibitory control and fluency performances was attained using forward stepwise regressions analyses. Considering the exploratory nature of this investigation, we chose this type of regression analysis as it implies a more automatic choice of predictive variables. Hence, for all investigated outcomes, the procedure was carried out by entering mother’s level of education in Step 1, testing the addition of culture at Step 2, and of each individual differences variables in the subsequent 3 to 6 steps (i.e., age, gender, nonverbal intelligence, trait anxiety). Mother’s level of education and culture (considered external factors) were introduced first in order to analyze whether individual differences predictors have significant effects when these variables are held constant. Missing Data For most measures, there was less than 10% missing data (i.e., 2% for the Colored Progressive Matrices, Statue, and Picture Completion Torrance subtests, 10% for Auditory Attention, and Response Set subtests, and 6% for trait anxiety), and this was accounted by either evaluation errors or by the fact that children could not attend the entire session. Approximately 20% of the data was missing on the measures having efficiency as an outcome (i.e., Visual Attention, Inhibition, and Naming) and this was mostly accounted for by errors in accurate time measurement but also by some children only attending some of the probes. Similarly, 15% of data was missing on the Word Generation task due to either evaluation errors or the fact that children could not attend the entire session. Considering the relatively small amount of missing information, prior to conducting our analyses, missing data were replaced using stochastic regression imputation. This method uses multiple regressions to predict missing data by using available data as predictors, and then reintroducing random variability into the imputed data (Little & Schenker, 1995).


Preliminary Analyses First, at an overall level, descriptive analyses revealed relatively high mean percent scores on the inhibition measures that had accuracy as main output: Children’s performance was 76.06% correct on the Statue task, 91.72% on Knock and Tap, 78.02% on the Auditory Attention subtest, and 71.27% accurate on the Response Set subtest. Further descriptive statistics regarding ranges, means, and standard deviations for all measures taken into account in this study are reported as a function of culture group in Table 1. Second, preliminary analyses were conducted regarding differences between the two culture groups (Romanian and Russian). In order to ensure comparable results regarding children’s executive functioning performances in the two culture groups, the samples were matched based on age, nonverbal intelligence scores, and sex distribution. While they did not differ in terms of age, F(1, 130) = 1.33, p = .25, or sex distribution, χ2(1, N = 131) = 1.72, p = .19, the initial samples were different regarding nonverbal intelligence scores. However, this problem was overcome by excluding from further analyses the outliers (3 preschoolers from the Romanian group having intelligence scores two standard deviations below the initial Romanian-sample mean, and 2 children from the Russian group having Raven scores two standard deviations above the initial Russian-sample mean). The final samples had similar nonverbal intelligence scores, F(1, 130) = 2.62, p = .11 (see Table 1 for descriptive data). The preliminary analyses also revealed that the two samples did differ in terms of mother’s level of education, as 87.5% of the Russian mothers had a university degree (4.7% a high school diploma, and 7.8% only finished secondary school), as compared to 73.1% of the Romanian mothers (20.9% had a high school diploma, and 6% only had a secondary school diploma), χ2(2, N = 131) = 7.63, p = .02. Consequently, mother’s level of education was introduced in subsequent stepwise regression analyses as a dichotomous variable, differentiating between high school diploma as the maximum achieved level of education (n = 26) and university degree (n = 105), respectively. The two samples also differed in their trait anxiety scores, Russian preschoolers presenting a higher level of total anxiety symptoms, t(130) = 12.89, p < .001, as well as higher scores on most of the Spence subscales: t(130) = 27.28, p < .001 for Generalized Anxiety Disorder; t(130) = 15.02, p < .001, for Separation Anxiety; t(130) = 14.83, p < .001 for Social Anxiety, t(130) = 5.83, p < .05, for obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Regarding the level of anxiety symptoms for age groups in each culture sample, results from the Romanian sample proved to be very similar to those obtained on the original Australian sample for 5-year-old children2 (yet lower than the original adaptation of the Spence on the Romanian population). At the same time, observed values from the Russian sample were substantially higher than those obtained on both the current Romanian and the original Australian sample (see appendix for details).


Table 1 Descriptive Statistics Regarding Study Measures for Both Culture Groups. Culture Group Romanian preschoolers (n = 67) Measures Age (in months) Raven Nonverbal Intelligence Spence Anxiety Score Statue Knock and Tap Auditory Attention Response Set Visual Attention Efficiency Inhibition Efficiency Naming Efficiency Verbal Fluency Figural Fluency

Range 61–87 14–29 2–42 7–30 4–34 5–30 22–30 1.58–8.95 1.73–6.95 1.25–4.37 10–49 2–10

Mean (SD) 75.46 21.20 19.19 22.41 27.87 22.02 23.04 4.32 3.08 2.14 22.61 8.98

(7.21) (3.81) (9.71) (6.03) (2.02) (5.67) (6.88) (1.55) (0.84) (0.60) (8.58) (2.14)

Russian preschoolers (n = 64) Range 63–86 13–29 8–58 11–30 13–36 14–30 22–30 1.45–11.25 2.00–6.62 1.20–9.70 8–35 4–11

Mean (SD) 73.95 22.38 25.85 23.25 27.15 24.85 28.39 5.63 3.36 2.48 19.52 9.53

(7.77) (4.54) (11.48) (4.29) (2.38) (4.52) (6.57) (2.10) (1.01) (1.14) (6.77) (1.05)

Note. Efficiency represents the mean accurate response time (time taken to complete the task/number of accurate responses).


Interrelations Within and Between Subcomponents of Inhibitory Control and Generative Fluency In order to explore associations among the inhibitory control and fluency measures, zero-order and partial correlations (controlling for age) were conducted for both culture samples (see Table 2). Analyses revealed relatively similar correlations in both cultures between the inhibitory control subcomponents. With regards to interrelations among performances on response suppression tasks, Statue and Auditory Attention, were positively associated in both countries, pointing to a common underlying construct. However, the significant correlation was not preserved when controlling for age, suggesting that the association was primarily based on common age effects. For the Romanian subgroup, scores on the Knock and Tap task were also found to be positively associated to children’s scores on Statue, and the association remained (marginally) significant after controlling for age. However, the situation was not similar for the Russian sample, as Knock and Tap scores were not significantly related to any of the other response suppression performances. Regarding interrelations between scores on the attention control measures, results revealed a negative association between Response Set scores and children’s Visual Attention efficiency. These findings suggest that preschoolers having better accuracy performances on the Response Set were more likely to also have better efficiency on the Visual Attention task, giving accurate responses more rapidly. Moreover, in the Russian sample, scores on the Response Set were also negatively associated to children’s Inhibition efficiency, pointing to a similar relation between accurate shift responses and visual attentional control efficiency. However, this significant association was not preserved when controlling for age, suggesting that age effects primarily accounted for the negative correlation. With respect to between-domain relations, Auditory Attention performance was also found to be related to the second part of the task (i.e., Response Set); the result mainly emphasizing the interdependence of the two parts comprised in the Auditory Attention and Response Set subtest, despite presenting different inhibitory control demands. A few associations between attention control and response suppression measures were present in

Table 2 Zero Order and Partial (Controlling for Age) Correlations Among Inhibitory Control Measures for the Romanian (n = 67) and Russian (n = 64) Samples. Knock and Tap Auditory Attention Response Set Visual Att. Efficiency Inhibition Efficiency Naming Efficiency Verbal Fluency Figural Fluency Romanian sample Statue Knock and Tap Auditory Attention Response Set Visual Attention Eff. Inhibition Eff. Naming Eff. Verbal Fluency Figural Fluency Russian sample Statue Knock and Tap Auditory Attention Response Set Visual Attention Eff. Inhibition Eff. Naming Eff. Verbal Fluency Figural Fluency

.25* (.24+) –

.24* (.19) .07 (.04) –

.38**(.35**) .17 (.15) .71**(.69**) –

−.21 (−.18) .16 (.18) −.35**(−.32**) −.39**(−.36**) –

−.24* (−.18) −.23+ (−.21) −.06 (.08) −.05 (.05) .16 (.09) –

−.35**(−.32**) −.23+ (−.21) −.05 (.06) −.14 (−.08) .23+ (.18) .64** (.58**) –

.18 (.14) −.06 (–09) .34** (.28*) .32** (.29*) −.28* (−.25*) −.20 (−.11) .22 (−.15) –

.35**(.34**) .26* (.26*) .29* (.28*) .15 (.14) −.11 (−.09) −.04 (−.01) −.04 (−.01) 23 (.22) –

−.05 (−.03) –

.25* (.13) −.06 (−.05) –

.31* (.12) .02 (.04) .46** (.39**) –

−.28* (−.14) .07 (.05) −.04 (.06) −.25* (−.13) –

−.29* (−.15) −.01 (−.02) −.10 (−.01) −.27* (−.15) .16 (.06) –

−.02 (−.04) .09 (.09) −.17 (−.18) −.08 (−.10) .38** (.41**) .36** (.39**) –

.27* (−.01) −.02 (.01) .13 (−.02) .46** (.31*) −.26* (−.12) −.19 (−.03) −.08 (−.11)

.32** (.17) −.13 (−.12) .26* (.18) .20 (.06) −.19 (−.08) −.05 (.01) .05 (.05) .18 (−.01) –

Notes. +p < .06. *p < .05. **p < .01. Eff. = efficiency; Efficiency represents the mean accurate response time (time taken to complete the task/number of accurate responses); Partial correlations are displayed in brackets.


both samples between Statue and Response Set and Inhibition efficiency, respectively (there was also a marginally significant association between Knock and Tap and Inhibition efficiency in the Romanian sample). As for between-domain relations with the fluency measures, children’s scores on the verbal fluency task were significantly related to some of the inhibition measures in both samples, suggesting a certain interdependence between verbal development and inhibitory control development in 5- to 7-year-olds. Interestingly, children’s scores on the Figural Fluency task were exclusively related to performances on the response suppression subtests in both cultural samples (with the exception of the Knock and Tap scores, which significantly correlated in the Romanian sample only), suggesting that performance on this measure of ideational fluency might rely on inhibitory skills mainly tapping response suppression. Nevertheless, some of these associations lost their statistical significance when controlling for age, suggesting the possibility of an overall performance variation to be dependent on age effects that facilitated both response suppression and ideational fluency. Also, as revealed in Table 2, despite tapping different executive functions, efficiency performance on the Naming part of the Inhibition subtest was significantly related to children’s performance on the Inhibition part across cultures. The positive association remained significant after controlling for age, further emphasizing the interdependence of the two parts comprised in the Inhibition subtest. Another association, present in both cultures, was found between children’s Naming efficiency performance and their Visual Attention efficiency scores, which were positively related. Taken together, these results suggest that children who were more efficient at accurately naming items were also more likely to take less time giving accurate responses in tasks tapping attentional control/cognitive inhibition (i.e., Visual Attention and Inhibition). Inhibitory Control and Generative Fluency Performance Variations In order to explore the potential role of external and individual differences measures on preschoolers’ inhibitory control and generative fluency performances, we conducted several forward stepwise regression analyses, exploring factors that influence scores on tasks tapping response suppression, attentional control, processing speed, verbal and figural fluency, respectively. Hence, all inhibition, naming, and fluency scores were regressed on mother’s level of education (introduced as a dichotomous variable: high school diploma versus university degree — as maximum levels of education mothers have achieved) and culture (Romanian and Russian) in order to assess the extent to which these external variables had unique impacts on children’s inhibition and/or fluency performances. To these variables, individual differences in age, gender, nonverbal intelligence, and trait anxiety scores were added as potential predictors that could further explain some of the inhibition, naming, and/or fluency performance variations. Hence, all outcomes were regressed on all six predictors, introduced in a stepwise procedure, in the following order: mother’s level of education, culture, age, gender, nonverbal intelligence, and trait anxiety. Table 3 summarizes the results of the regression analyses for all inhibitory control tasks included in the study, and Table 4 displays regression results for naming and fluency measures. Response Suppression. As revealed by Table 3, the final regression models accounted for significant proportions of the variance in two of the response suppression performances: 10% for Statue and 15% for Auditory Attention. Still, the contribution of


Table 3 Stepwise Regressions Predicting Children’s (N = 131) Performance on the Inhibitory Control Tasks. Outcome variable

Predictors

B

SE

6.52

4.40

β

R2 (model F)

Statue .10 (13.88**) Age

.31**

Knock and Tap –

.05 (1.06)

Auditory Attention Model 1

.07 ( 9.91**) Culture

2.83

0.90

.27**

Culture Age

3.13 0.20

0.87 0.06

.30** .28**

Culture

5.35

1.18

.37**

Culture Age

5.77 0.28

1.13 0.08

.40** .29**

Culture Age Gender

6.10 0.25 3.23

1.10 0.07 1.11

.42** .26** .23*

Culture Age Gender Intelligence

5.59 0.18 3.11 0.33

1.10 0.08 1.09 0.14

.39** .19* .22* .19*

Culture

1.31

0.32

.34**

Culture Age

1.21 −0.07

0.31 0.02

.31** –.25*

Trait anxiety

0.03

0.01

.40**

Trait anxiety Age

0.04 −0.05

0.01 0.01

.44** −.42**

Model 2

.15 (11.31**)

Response Set Model 1

.14 (20.69**)

Model 2

.22 (18.33**)

Model 3

.27 (15.80**)

Model 4

.30 (13.64**)

Visual Attention Eff. Model 1

.11 (16.61**)

Model 2

.18 (13.78**)

Inhibition Efficiency Model 1

.16 (23.69**)

Model 2

.33 (31.44**)

Notes. *p < .05. **p < .001. All inhibitory control outcomes were regressed on all six predictors in the following order: mother’s level of education (high school degree versus university diploma), culture (Romanian versus Russian), age, gender, nonverbal intelligence, and trait anxiety. Efficiency = mean accurate response time (time taken to complete the task/number of accurate responses). Russia was the reference culture for the Culture predictor, while female gender was the reference Gender predictor.

study predictors to these performances was not identical across the two tasks: While culture was a significant predictor for Auditory Attention performance from the first step analysis, β = .27, t(130) = 3.15, p = .002, it did not significantly predict scores on the Statue task, β = .11, t(130) = 1.35, p = .18. The final models revealed that age had the only significant contribution to children’s performance on the Statue task, β = .31,

INHIBITORY CONTROL IN ROMANIAN & RUSSIAN CHILDREN Table 4 Regression Results Predicting Children’s (N = 131) Performance on Naming Efficiency, Verbal, and Figural Fluency. Outcome variable

Predictors

B

SE

β

Trait anxiety

0.02

0.02

.24*

Age

0.39

0.09

.37**

0.37 −2.53

0.09 1.27

.35** –.16*

R2 (model F)

Naming Efficiency .06 (7.94*) Verbal Fluency Model 1

.14 (20.22**)

Model 2

.16 (12.31**) Age Culture

Figural Fluency .05 (1.19) Notes.* = p < .05. ** = p < .001. All outcomes were regressed on all six predictors in the following order: mother’s level of education (high school degree versus university diploma), culture (Romanian versus Russian), age, gender, nonverbal intelligence, and trait anxiety. Efficiency = mean accurate response time (time taken to complete the task/number of accurate responses). Russia was the reference culture for the Culture predictor, while female gender was the reference Gender predictor.

t(130) = 3.73, p < .001, suggesting that an older age predicted better performances, while a superior performance on the Auditory Attention was significantly predicted by Russian culture, β = .30, t(130) = 3.61, p < .001, and older age, β = .28, t(130) = 3.45, p < .001. With regards to children’s scores on the Knock and Tap task, mother’s level of education and culture were nonsignificant predictors, β = −.11, t(130) = –1.19, p = .24, for mother’s education, β = −.10, t(130) = –1.02, p = .31, for culture. Additional potential predictors — age, gender, nonverbal intelligence scores, and anxiety — did not contribute to explaining performance variation. Hence, the final regression model nonsignificantly accounted for 5% of the Knock and Tap performance. Attention Control. The final regression models also accounted for significant proportions of the variance in performances on the attentional control tasks: 30% for Response Set accuracy, 18% for Visual Attention efficiency, and 33% for Inhibition efficiency. Again, predictors’ contribution was not identical across tasks: While Russian culture positively predicted children’s accurate performance on the Response Set task, β = .37, t(130) = 4.55, p < .001, as well as their mean accurate response times on the Visual Attention subtest from the first Step analysis, β = .34, t(130) = 4.08, p < .001, it did not predict efficiency performances on the Inhibition task, β = .04, t(130) = .48, p = .64. These findings suggest that, while children from the Russian culture were significantly more accurate on the Response Set subtest, they were also significantly slower on the Visual Attention task. Additional individual differences predictors, age, gender, and nonverbal intelligence, respectively, brought an additional significant contribution (of 16%) to the first model explaining children’s Response Set performance. While culture’s significance was not undermined by adding these predictors, age was found to positively predict Response Set accuracy, β = .19, t(130) = 2.32, p = .022. Gender and nonverbal intelligence were


found to have similar effects, predicting girls’ superior accuracy, β = .22, t(130) = 2.86, p = .005, and better performances for children with higher nonverbal intelligence, β = .19, t(130) = 2.34, p = .021, respectively. Aside from culture, variation in Visual Attention efficiency was also explained by age. The final model, containing culture and age as significant predictors explains an additional 7% of the variance. Hence, the final model revealed that while Russian culture predicted children’s slower Visual Attention responses, β = .31, t(130) = 3.87, p < .001, older age predicted more rapid ones, β = −.25, t(130) = –3.13, p = .002. Although age was also a significant contributor to Inhibition efficiency variation, the primary predictor in this case was trait anxiety, predicting alone 16% of children’s performance. Hence, anxiety and age were the only significant predictors of Inhibition efficiency, with results revealing that higher anxiety scores positively predicted longer response times, β = .44, t(130) = 5.98, p < .001, while older age predicted quicker reaction times for accurate responses, β = −.42, t(130) = 5.76, p < .001. Naming, Verbal Fluency, and Figural Fluency. As displayed in Table 4, the final regression models significantly accounted for 6% of the variance in children’s Naming efficiency performance and for 16% of the variance in Verbal Fluency scores, but nonsignificantly accounted for 5% of the Figural Fluency performance. Again, the predictors’ contribution was not the same across tasks: while mother’s level of education, gender, and nonverbal intelligence were nonsignificant predictors for all measures, Naming efficiency performance was significantly predicted by trait anxiety, and Verbal Fluency was partially explained by variances in age and culture. Hence, as revealed by Table 4, while higher anxiety levels positively predicted children’s longer accurate response reactions on the Naming subtest, β = .24, t(130) = 2.82, p = .006, superior performances on the Verbal fluency task were significantly predicted by older age, β = .35, t(130) = 4.32, p < .001, and Romanian culture, β = −.16, t(130) = –1.98, p = .049. DISCUSSION The present study investigated the early development of inhibitory control in young children from two countries (Romania and Russia) that share many aspects of childrearing and educational practices, documented in the literature to influence the development of cognitive control, especially the ability to inhibit responses inadequate to contextual demands. The study relied on the assessment approach proposed by Luria (1973) as it is reflected in the widely used neuropsychological battery NEPSY. Considering the lack of cross-cultural studies measuring inhibitory control development in EasternEuropean countries, the investigation was mostly exploratory. Our exploratory hypotheses have been only partially confirmed by the results of this investigation with some unexpected findings opening interesting future research avenues. First, findings regarding early interrelationships within and between subcomponents of inhibitory control (response suppression and attention control) across the two culture samples suggest that, even at this young age, the construct of inhibitory control cannot be regarded as a unitary or homogenous entity, as scores between the two subcomponents were not highly interrelated. At the same time, children’s scores on response suppression (and not attention control) measures were generally associated to their scores on tasks


tapping generative fluency, and these findings further emphasize the dissociation between the two inhibition subcomponents. Second, with regards to children’s inhibition and fluency performance variations as a function of external factors (mother’s level of education, culture), the results revealed that, while differences in maternal education were not predictive of either inhibitory control or fluency scores, children’s inhibition performance (mainly attention control) was influenced by cultural differences. At the same time, the direction of these effects differed by whether the target outcome involved performance accuracy versus efficiency as an output. With regards to individual differences effects, the results also confirmed the previously documented intensive developmental improvement in preschoolers’ inhibitory control during this period, influencing both measures of response suppression and attention control. Gender and the level of nonverbal intelligence selectively influenced one attention control task (i.e., Response Set), while trait-anxiety level was the main predictor of Inhibition and Naming efficiency, respectively. Each of these findings will be further discussed in detail and integrated in the existing literature. Interrelations Within and Between Subcomponents of Inhibitory Control and Generative Fluency Using multiple tasks with younger preschoolers (2–3 to 5–6 years old), yet not directly assessing response suppression versus cognitive inhibition, several studies found evidence favoring a unitary executive function/inhibitory control construct (Miller, Giesbrecht, Müller, McInerney, & Kerns, 2012; Visu-Petra, Cheie, Benga, & Miclea, 2012; Wiebe, Espy, & Charak, 2008). Based on previous conceptual and empirical delineations proposed by Espy and Bull (2005) and Diamond (2013), we expected to find greater coherence and synchronicity in developmental timing between measures of simple response suppression and those requiring attention control, respectively, in our 5- to 7-year-old preschoolers. Moreover, measures of response suppression from NEPSY- I (i.e., Statue, Knock and Tap) have been previously shown to be moderately related among themselves (Klenberg et al., 2001; Visu-Petra et al., 2007). However, the distinction between response suppression and attention control measures was only partially validated by our current results. With regards to the interrelations among response suppression measures, this subcomponent was only sustained in both samples by the significant relationship between children’s scores on the Statue and on the Auditory Attention subtests, probably because both rely on resisting to respond to (auditory) distractors. Performance on the Knock and Tap task (a version of the classic Lurian tapping test) displayed a less clear-cut pattern of association with the other subtests. This inconsistent effect could also be attributed to the little variability presented in children’s responses, as well as to their score distribution, which was skewed towards maximum accuracy. Regarding the interrelations among children’s scores on the attention control measures, findings revealed that, although the direction of the small-to-moderate associations was similar in both culture groups, their statistical significance was not consistent across the two samples. Moreover, correlation analyses also identified several associations between scores on attention control measures and response suppression performances. These results might suggest that the attentional control intertask correlations are not clearcut and further stress that performance on these tests could be susceptible to culture and/or individual differences effects. This latter assumption was further investigated via


regression analyses, exploring (in each case) the role of maternal education, culture, and individual differences in age, gender, nonverbal intelligence, and anxiety. Before discussing the results of these regressions, one final note is related to the positive correlation between the scores on the figural fluency measure and response suppression performance, which was visible across culture samples. Apparently, this relation is at odds with findings in studies with older children and adults, which identify figural fluency as being negatively related to (cognitive) inhibition (Healey & Rucklidge, 2006; Scibinetti et al., 2011). However, in younger children, it is possible that figural fluency, based on complex demands to generate new structures and to verbally label them, is strongly dependent on response suppression. In this direction, the updated coding system of the figural Torrance tests includes a ‚resistance to premature closure‛ score (Torrance & Ball, 1984), precisely used to denote children’s ability to resist offering the first response that comes to mind and being able to elaborate on their designs. Inhibitory Control and Generative Fluency Performance Variations Although there are studies suggesting that parental education influences 5- to 14-year-old children’s executive functioning performance (Ardila et al., 2005), such influences are rather found in older children (e.g., 8–12 years old; Sarsour et al., 2010) and less in preschool children (see Lawson et al., 2014). Findings in the current study did not reveal a significant impact of maternal education upon children’s inhibitory control and fluency outcomes. These results are in line with previous research failing to find socioeconomic status—related executive functioning differences in preschoolers (e.g., Wiebe et al., 2008). It is possible that the impact of maternal education on measures of executive education becomes more evident during the school years, especially in relation to the different opportunities for access to education that this variable circumscribes (Ardila et al., 2005). However, most mothers in both samples (over 85% for the Russian sample and over 70% from the Romanian sample) had a university degree. It is possible that a more stratified sample with respect to maternal education than the one included in the current study (which led us to generate the oversimplifying dichotomous variable of maternal education) might be more sensitive to differences in executive control related to this variable. We did not have compelling reasons to expect any cultural differences in the absolute levels of our measured variables (inhibitory control, verbal and figural fluency). Surprisingly, we found that belonging to one of the two cultural groups had an impact on measures of attention control, but not on measures of response suppression (except a limited impact on Auditory Attention, which might have itself involved a degree of attention control). However, there was an interesting dissociation between accuracy and efficiency outcomes that modulated this cultural effect on attentional control. More specific, children from the Russian sample outperformed children from the Romanian sample when response accuracy was the main outcome (i.e., on Auditory Attention, Response Set). When efficiency (response time per number of correct responses) was the main outcome, such as in the case of Visual Attention, children from the Russian sample were outperformed, as Romanian preschoolers provided faster correct responses (accuracy was at high levels in both countries). This suggests that something else than these basic predictors (already related in the literature to the early development of inhibitory control, see Klenberg et al., 2001) could explain the speed-accuracy differences found when comparing the performances of children from the two cultures. It is possible


that educational practices emphasizing a more ‚cautious‛ style in Russian preschoolers might be related to their investing more resources in solving the task correctly at the expense of their response speed. Although there is little research to back up this idea, indirect evidence is provided by studies revealing Russian preschool teachers’ high consideration for values such as emotion management, persistence, and patience (Butovskaya & Demianovitsch, 2002), as well as their disapproval of preschoolers’ impulsive responses (Ispa, 1995). To our knowledge, no comparable research has been conducted in Romania, so our suggested interpretation remains speculative and should be investigated directly. Another possible cultural difference emerges from the fact that school entrance, especially in metropolitan areas, is based on a highly competitive process in Russia, with admissions based on the scores children obtained during a formal interview (Ispa, 2002). Considering the high stakes employed by correctly responding to such an interview, children might be taught from early on to be careful in providing correct answers when being examined. Such a school entrance interview does not exist in the Romanian educational system (except for some foreign language assessments for classes taught in a specific foreign language). This explanation may also account for the fact that children from the Russian sample had poorer performances in the verbal fluency task (i.e., Word Generation). In this respect, children from the Romanian sample might have been less worried about giving correct answers and, consequently, provided more verbal answers that they thought could fit the word categories (i.e., animals, food and beverages). Regarding developmental trends across various tasks, the strongest age effects were found on measures of Inhibition efficiency and Verbal fluency. This confirms that during late preschool years, there are intensive progresses in both Stroop-like inhibition efficiency (Garon, Bryson, & Smith, 2008) and verbal processing speed/articulation rate, as revealed by the age-related effects on the Naming subtest. Strong age-related effects were also found in studies investigating semantic fluency, which has been shown to display a protracted developmental course (Klenberg et al., 2001; Visu-Petra et al., 2007). Interestingly, during this interval, age-related changes were also found to be predictive of response suppression measures such as the Statue or Auditory Attention (but not Knock and Tap). The previously mentioned studies have shown that on the Statue subtest, performance reaches a maturity level in children as young as 6. The age effects identified in the current study are apparently discrepant from this finding yet could be the result of more intensive changes occurring during the 5- to 7-year-old period. Performance on the Auditory Attention and Response Set tasks has been previously shown to mature only at about 9–10 years of age (Klenberg et al., 2001; Visu-Petra et al., 2007), so it is plausible that it undergoes strong developmental changes during the 5- to 7-year-old interval. Finally, previous evidence is mixed regarding developmental trends for the Visual Attention subtest with some studies revealing a very early maturation in children as young as 6 years old (Visu-Petra et al., 2007; Welsh et al., 1991) and others suggesting that it only reaches ceiling levels at the age of 10 (Klenberg et al., 2001). Our findings suggest that, during the 5- to 7-year-old interval, there is a significant age-related improvement on this task. Gender has been generally shown to influence performance on inhibitory control tasks with girls outperforming boys even during early preschool years (Klenberg et al., 2001). This effect might be universal, considering the differential socialization of inhibition between genders from an evolutionary perspective (Bjorklund & Kipp, 1996). Girls were found to outperform boys on the Response Set subtest, yet there were no gender effects on the response suppression tasks (i.e., Statue, Knock and Tap, Auditory


Attention), confirming previous findings with the NEPSY battery (Klenberg et al., 2001; Visu-Petra et al., 2007, but see mixed evidence of gender effects favoring boys or girls on Luria tapping tests reviewed in Bjorklund & Kipp, 1996). The influence of nonverbal intelligence on measures of inhibition was limited to a modest effect on the same Response Set subtest. This finding confirms previous research suggesting that across the lifespan, intelligence and inhibitory control measures are moderately related at best (Friedman et al., 2006; Welsh et al., 1991). Finally, the introduction of individual differences in anxiety in the regression analyses was based on the predictions of the Attentional Control Theory (Eysenck et al., 2007), suggesting that higher levels of anxiety are linked to efficiency deficits in inhibitory control, and especially in attention control tasks (Berggren & Derakshan, 2013). Indeed, no effect of anxiety was found on response suppression tasks, on the visual search task, or on the attention control tasks that had accuracy as the main outcome. However, a strong detrimental effect of anxiety was evident on the Inhibition efficiency performance, confirming previous findings of an anxiety-linked impairment on Stroop-like tests in adults (e.g., Wood, Mathews, & Dalgleish, 2001). Children’s tendency to worry excessively about their performance could be thus translated in a longer response time invested to produce the alternative responses required by this task. Interestingly, children’s Inhibition efficiency scores were the only attention control scores that remained unaffected by cultural differences. The same pattern of results also appeared in children’s verbal processing speed (i.e., Naming), where trait anxiety was the only predictor for their performance variation. These effects could be explained by the prior identified cultural differences in absolute levels of anxiety. More specific, parental reports about Russian preschoolers revealed higher levels of anxiety compared to Romanian parental reports. A previous study by Butovskaya and Demianovitsch (2002) revealed an unexpected increase in the level of parentally reported anxious/withdrawn behavior in 6-year-old preschoolers and linked it to the abovementioned stress that children experienced regarding the forthcoming competition for school entrance. The lack of such a pressure in Romanian late preschool years could be one explanation for the identified difference in anxiety levels between the two cultures and might suggest that it could be a transitory effect. Other studies with Russian preschoolers suggest that parenting style could represent an important contributor to the emergence of high levels of fears in preschoolers (Kochetova, 2012). An interesting observation is that the levels of anxiety symptoms in the Russian sample appear similarly elevated to those reported on the original Romanian adaptation sample (Benga et al., 2010). Thus, one explanation that cannot be ruled out could be that we identified a Romanian subsample with atypically low anxiety symptoms for Romanian young children. However, this explanation fails to account for the similarly lower anxiety symptoms levels identified in other more recent studies with Romanian preschoolers (e.g., Cheie, Miclea, & Visu-Petra, 2014; Visu-Petra, Cheie, Benga, & Alloway, 2011). It is thus possible that the data collected for the adaptation sample (between the years 2006–2009) do not fully reflect the actual level of anxiety symptoms for Romanian preschoolers. Future studies with preschool/early school-age children conducted in both countries could clarify these hypotheses and could explore other factors, such as how attitudes toward testing are conveyed by parents and educators from early on in both countries, which could lead to the documented difference between performance efficiency and effectiveness across cultures. Nevertheless, the current study suggests that trait anxiety represents an important cross-cultural predictor of attentional control efficiency above and beyond the roles played by other variables such as maternal education, gender, or nonverbal


intelligence. Consequently, these findings confirm and extend the predictions of the Attentional Control Theory on a cross-cultural developmental sample, opening future research directions for the interplay between dispositional variables and cognitive functioning in young children. Limitations Considering the lack of a validated measure of linguistic proficiency, common to both countries and adequate for this age range, we decided to focus on nonverbal measures of inhibition. When a verbal response was required (e.g., in the Inhibition test), this was a very simple one (naming a geometric shape or an up/down direction of an arrow). However, from the start, this limits our results to nonverbal measures of inhibitory control. Other methodological limitations, such as the relatively small number of participants included, the naturally occurring missing data specific to testing young children, or covering a specific urban population, limit the generalizability of our results. Future crosscultural studies should extend the target population from both countries, especially considering the identified differences in child-rearing and educational values between metropolitan/urban and suburban/rural regions in Russia and Romania (Butovskaya & Demianovitsch, 2002; Ispa, 1995). Considering that most of the explanations we provided for the identified cultural effects are still speculative, future studies could include measures of child rearing, as well as measures of general educational practices, in order to investigate the extent to which such variables are modulating the relationship between preschoolers’ inhibition performances and their belonging to a certain culture. Finally, there are also limitations in investigating the effects of individual differences in anxiety on preschoolers’ inhibition performance. In this respect, the lack of a selfreported measure of state anxiety and the reliance on parental report is to be taken into consideration. However, studies show that it is difficult to reliably assess self-reported state anxiety in preschool children (Schniering, Hudson, & Rapee, 2000) and that individuals with high trait anxiety are more likely to experience high state anxiety in potentially stressful situations (Lau, Eley, & Stevenson, 2006). Also, future investigations testing the Attentional Control Theory’s predictions could consider having measures of processing efficiency (e.g., time taken to accurately complete the task or subjective mental effort) on all inhibition tasks, as high anxious individuals’ efficiency is believed to be negatively affected to a greater extent than their accuracy (Eysenck et al., 2007). CONCLUSIONS The current study endorsed the assessment approach and derived methodology proposed by Luria (1973) to investigate early interrelations between dimensions of inhibitory control in young children from two cultures, Romanian and Russian. The findings partially confirm the response suppression—attention control dichotomization in inhibitory control measures across cultures—but also suggest that belonging to one of the two cultural groups might influence preschoolers’ performance of attention control (with little impact on measures of response suppression). However, the direction of these cultural effects was further modulated by whether the target outcome involved performance accuracy versus efficiency. There were no notable cultural differences in terms of generative fluency, except for a minor advantage of Romanian preschoolers in terms of


verbal fluency performance. Moreover, the current study also stresses the importance of individual differences effects in anxiety on inhibition efficiency performance. In this respect, our findings suggest that trait anxiety should always be taken into consideration when investigating attention control development, as results showed that the level of trait anxiety, and possibly cross-cultural differences in this dimension, accounted for significant variations in preschoolers’ attention control competencies. To summarize, aside from supporting and extending previous findings regarding the developmental trends and associations between early inhibitory control subcomponents, the present study further stresses the potential importance of individual and cultural differences and similarities in child-rearing and educational practices, previously found to influence the development of the ability to inhibit responses inadequate to contextual demands.

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APPENDIX Comparison between Australian and Romanian normative data and children’s scores in the current study (Romanian and Russian samples) regarding mean scores on the Spence Preschool Anxiety Scale (Spence et al., 2001).

Australia (Spence et al., Romania (Benga et al., 2001) 2010) 5-year-olds Generalized anxiety Social anxiety Obsessive compulsive Physical injury fears Separation anxiety Total score 6-year-olds Generalized anxiety Social anxiety Obsessive compulsive Physical injury fears Separation anxiety Total score 7-year-olds Generalized anxiety Social anxiety Obsessive compulsive Physical injury fears Separation anxiety Total score

2.04 4.29 1.09 5.92 2.29 15.65

(2.51) (4.02) (1.75) (4.60) (2.58) (11.94)

Romania Current study

4.10 (3.12) 6.11 (4.34) 4.91 (3.21) 9.79 (5.49) 5.72 (4.04) 30.62 (14.80)

1.96 3.50 3.54 4.33 2.96 16.42

4.72 6.84 5.20 10.36 5.44 32.55

(3.34) (4.86) (3.18) (5.88) (3.80) (15.76)

5.59 (4.47) 7.59 (5.24) 5.30 (3.56) 11.86 (6.31) 6.54 (4.26) 36.89 (19.41)

(2.27) (3.77) (1.67) (3.11) (2.56) (9.40)

Russia Current study

5.28 6.50 2.49 4.70 5.01 24.83

(3.31) (3.31) (2.27) (3.79) (2.62) (10.32)

3.16 (2.71) 4.62 (3.19) 4.25 (1.95) 6.03 (3.96) 3.50 (2.82) 21.81 (10.18)

4.93 5.71 3.08 5.50 5.00 22.77

(2.83) (3.15) (2.59) (4.10) (3.25) (10.71)

2.91 (2.51) 3.00 (2.79) 3.82 (1.72) 5.00 (2.57) 2.91 (2.07) 17.64 (7.35)

6.43 6.71 4.57 8.00 5.71 31.43

(3.05) (3.86) (4.08) (3.79) (3.35) (14.42)