The structure of executive functions in preschool children and chimpanzees
Date
19/04/2022Author
Funder
Grant ID
639072
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Abstract
Executive functions (EF) are a core aspect of cognition. Research with adult humans has produced evidence for unity and diversity in the structure of EF. Studies with preschoolers favour a 1-factor model, in which variation in EF tasks is best explained by a single underlying trait on which all EF tasks load. How EF are structured in nonhuman primates remains unknown. This study starts to fill this gap through a comparative, multi-trait multi-method test battery with preschoolers (N = 185) and chimpanzees (N = 55). The battery aimed at measuring working memory updating, inhibition, and attention shifting with three non-verbal tasks per function. For both species the correlations between tasks were low to moderate and not confined to tasks within the same putative function. Factor analyses produced some evidence for the unity of executive functions in both groups, in that our analyses revealed shared variance. However, we could not conclusively distinguish between 1-, 2- or 3-factor models. We discuss the implications of our findings with respect to the ecological validity of current psychometric research.
Citation
Voelter , C J , Reindl , E , Felsche , E , Civelek , Z , Whalen , A , Lugosi , Z , Duncan , L , Hermann , E , Call , J & Seed , A M 2022 , ' The structure of executive functions in preschool children and chimpanzees ' , Scientific Reports , vol. 12 , 6456 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-08406-7
Publication
Scientific Reports
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2045-2322Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © The Author(s) 2022. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Description
Funding: The research of A.M.S. was supported by an ‘INQMINDS’ ERC Starting Grant no. (SEP-210159400).Collections
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