Development Of Executive Function In Elementary School Students

When children enter primary school,their main tasks are to learn the basic knowledge and skills of human scientific culture,to develop intelligence,physical strength and creativity,to built good thought moral characters,to form healthy personality.All these tasks cannot do without the participation of the executive function.Executive function(EF)refers to a family of top-down mental processes needed when you have to concentrate and pay attention,when going on automatic or relying on instinct or intuition would be ill-advised,insufficient,or impossible.EF is skill essential for mental and physical health;success in school and in life;and cognitive,social,and psychological development.At present.EF has been widely concerned by researchers,and many EF tasks have been accumulated to measure different age groups.EF's tasks are normally used by manual reaction,for example,one key corresponds to one condition to reach the different requirement of the task,and the level of executive function can be identified by the speed and accuracy of key-press.In recent years,with the developing of cognitive psychology and eye tracking technology,eye movement researches are no longer limited on reading study in depth,some eye movement tasks are used for measuring EF successfully,such as countermanding saccade task,oculomotor delayed response task and switched saccade task.However,can EF oculomotor tasks replace EF manual tasks?How about the age-related changes of EF oculomotor tasks in elementary school students and are they consistent with the results of manual tasks?These issues need to be further explored.Four studies including 7 experiments were carried out.In study 1,we examined age-related changes in prosaccade task performance of primary school children.In study 2,we examined the development of inhibitory control of saccadic eye movements in elementary school students.In study 3,we examined the development of working memory of saccadic eye movements in elementary school students.In study 4,we examined the development of cognitive flexibility of saccadic eye movements in elementary school students.Specific contents are as follows:Study 1 included an experiment.We used variable cue to target interval prosaccade task to measure 96 primary school children and examined the age-related changes.The experiment used 3(grade:2,4,6)x 3(fixation time:250ms,1000ms.4000ms)× 4(location:left 6°,left 3°,right 3°,right 6°)three factors mixed design.Study 2 included two experiments.In the first experiment,we used stop signal task and countermanding saccade task to measure 30 grade 4 students and examined the relationship between the two tasks.In the second experiment,we used countermanding saccade task to measure 94 primary school children and examine the age-related changes.The experiment used 3(grade:2,4,6)× 2(location:left,right)two factors mixed design.Study 3 included two experiments.In the first experiment,we used spatial working memory span task and oculomotor delayed response task to measure 30 grade 4 students and examined the relationship between the two tasks.In the second experiment,we used oculomotor delayed response task to measure 96 primary school children and examine the age-related changes.The experiment used 3(grade:2,4,6)× 3(delay time:250ms,1000ms,4000ms)x 4(location:left 6°,left 3°,right 3°,right 6°)three factors mixed design.Study 4 included two experiments.In the first experiment,we used digital switched task and pro-antisaccade switched task to measure 30 grade 4 students and examined the relationship between the two tasks.In the second experiment,we used pro-antisaccade switched task to measure 95 primary school children and examine the age-related changes.The experiment used 3(grade:2,4,6)× 2(task:prosaccade,antisaccade)×2(trial switch:switch,no switch)three factors mixed design.Based on the analysis and discussion of the results of the four studies,the following conclusions can be drawn:(1)Students in grade 2 could execute fast and correct prosaccades,showed that the eye movement tasks could be used to measure primary school students.The related researches found that results from executive function oculomotor tasks were significantly associated with that from classic manual tasks,which indicated that countermanding saccade task,oculomotor delayed response task and pro-antisaccade switched task could be used as a measurement tool for primary school children's executive function.(2)The inhibitory control of primary school children showed an upward trend,but different aspects had different speed.The ability to inhibit inappropriate saccades developed rapidly between grade 2 to grade 4 and the ability to restrain premature saccades developed rapidly between grade 4 and grade 6.(3)The working memory of primary school children was growing with the grade,and the fast growth was from grade 2 to grade 4;(4)The primary school children's saccadic reaction time was decreased gradually with the grade,when there was switch condition,this declined trend was more sloped.Cognitive flexibility of primary school children was growing with the grade,and the fast growth was from grade 4 to grade 6;...