In the present meta-analysis we examined the near- and far-transfer effects of training components of children's executive functions skills: working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive ...flexibility. We found a significant near-transfer effect (g+ = 0.44, k = 43, p < .001) showing that the interventions in the primary studies were successful in training the targeted components. However, we found no convincing evidence of far-transfer (g+ = 0.11, k = 17, p = .11). That is, training a component did not have a significant effect on the untrained components. By showing the absence of benefits that generalize beyond the trained components, we question the practical relevance of training specific executive function skills in isolation. Furthermore, the present results might explain the absence of far-transfer effects of working memory training on academic skills (Melby-Lervag & Hulme, 2013; Sala & Gobet, 2017).
Public Significance Statement
The present meta-analysis suggests that it is possible to foster executive functions in childhood by explicitly training them. However, these programs have limited practical relevance as they only promote the component(s), (working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility) that are targeted in the training and do not have far-transfer effects to untrained component(s).
The question whether being bilingual yields cognitive benefits is highly controversial with prior studies providing inconsistent results. Failures to replicate the bilingual advantage have been ...attributed to methodological factors such as comparing dichotomous groups and measuring cognitive abilities separately with single tasks. Therefore, the authors evaluated the 4 most prominent hypotheses of bilingual advantages for inhibitory control, conflict monitoring, shifting, and general cognitive performance by assessing bilingualism on 3 continuous dimensions (age of acquisition, proficiency, and usage) in a sample of 118 young adults and relating it to 9 cognitive abilities each measured by multiple tasks. Linear mixed-effects models accounting for multiple sources of variance simultaneously and controlling for parents' education as an index of socioeconomic status revealed no evidence for any of the 4 hypotheses. Hence, the authors' results suggest that bilingual benefits are not as broad and as robust as has been previously claimed. Instead, earlier effects were possibly due to task-specific effects in selective and often small samples.
It is a widely held belief that bilinguals have an advantage over monolinguals in executive-control tasks, but is this what all studies actually demonstrate? The idea of a bilingual advantage may ...result from a publication bias favoring studies with positive results over studies with null or negative effects. To test this hypothesis, we looked at conference abstracts from 1999 to 2012 on the topic of bilingualism and executive control. We then determined which of the studies they reported were subsequently published. Studies with results fully supporting the bilingual-advantage theory were most likely to be published, followed by studies with mixed results. Studies challenging the bilingual advantage were published the least. This discrepancy was not due to differences in sample size, tests used, or statistical power. A test for funnel-plot asymmetry provided further evidence for the existence of a publication bias.
•We conducted a meta-analysis of associations between obesity/overweight and various executive functions.•Obese participants showed broad impairments on executive function.•Overweight participants ...showed significant deficits on inhibition and working memory performances.•Measures of executive function moderated effects of obesity on working memory and decision-making.
Prior research has suggested that obesity/overweight may be associated with deficits in executive function. If true, this has important clinical implications. In this review, we synthesize the current literature by conducting a meta-analysis of studies comparing executive functions in overweight/obese individuals to normal weight controls. We identified 72 studies—with 4904 overweight/obese participants—that met our inclusion criteria. Effect sizes were analyzed using the robust variance estimation random effects meta-regression technique. It was found that obese participants showed broad impairments on executive function, including on tasks primarily utilizing inhibition, cognitive flexibility, working memory, decision-making, verbal fluency, and planning; overweight participants only showed significant deficits in inhibition and working memory. The only moderator of effects of obesity to emerge significant was the task used to assess the respective executive function, which moderated effects of obesity on working memory and decision-making. There were not enough studies of overweight individuals to make strong claims about moderating effects in those studies. In sum, current evidence supports the existence of broad executive function deficits in obese individuals, and inhibition and working memory deficits in overweight individuals.
Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have a delayed development. Two main cognitive models of ADHD are executive (cold) and motivational (hot) models. In this study, we aimed ...to compare the development of hot and cold executive functions in children with and without ADHD.
Forty-six children with ADHD symptoms (56% boys) and forty-four typically developing controls (54% boys), in three age groups of 6–8, 8–10 and 10–12 years, were participated in the study. Go/No-Go Task (GNGT), One-Back Test (OBT) and Shifting Attention Test (SAT), Delay Discounting Test (DDT) and Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) were used for assessment.
Children with ADHD showed lower performance in GNG, OBT, SAT, and BART, but intact performance in DDT. The tasks’ performance was significantly different between three age groups in GNG and SAT, but similar in OBT and BART. The interaction effect was significant only for the BART measures.
Children with ADHD compared to typically developing children, experience impaired hot and cold executive functions. The cognitive delay was found only in risky decision making as a hot executive function.
•Two domains of hot and cold executive function (EF) as underlying mechanisms of ADHD have been specifically considered in many models.•The developmental trajectory of hot and cold EF in school-aged children with and without ADHD was described.
Background
Rumination has been thought to relate to deficits in core executive functions (EFs), but the empirical findings for this idea are mixed. The aim of the present study is to synthesize ...existing literature to clarify these relations.
Methods
A comprehensive literature search revealed 34 published as well as unpublished studies on the associations between rumination and core EF. These studies report on 3,066 participants. The effect size in the meta‐analyses was obtained by the z transformation of correlation coefficients.
Results
Analysis revealed significant negative associations between rumination and both inhibition (r = ‒.23) and set‐shifting (r = ‒.19). There was no significant association between rumination and working memory. These associations were not moderated by age, sex, type of sample (depressed or healthy), type of outcome measure (accuracy vs. reaction time), or affective content of the task, although statistical power for these tests was limited.
Conclusions
We found significant negative associations between rumination and inhibition or set‐shifting. There was no significant association between rumination and working memory. Future research should adopt multiple measures of EF to provide clear evidence on the associations between EF and rumination. A better understanding of this relationship may have important implications for intervention of rumination, such as training programs to improve EF or teach compensatory strategies to mitigate the effects of EF impairments.
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