University of Essex

Department of Psychology

PS300: Research Project

The effect of stimulus-response association and cue type on prepotency in a Go/No-go task

testing young children’s inhibitory control

Student ID:1604181

Word count: 4,641

Date: 1/5/2019
 Abstract

Previous research by Simpson, Upson and Carroll (2017) identified that stimulus-response

association affects prepotency of responses only on an SRC task, not a Go/No-go task when

testing young children. They suggest this was due to the way responses were cued in a Go/No-go

task, as when they are colour-cued participants need not fully conceptualise the stimuli as the

same objects are used for both trial types. This study aimed to provide evidence for why this, it

hypothesized that children struggle to inhibit prepotent responses on No-go trials, showing low

inhibitory control. Also, that when stimulus and response are associated, children will perform

less accurately when responses are object-cued than colour-cued. Using a Go/No-go task, the

prepotency of responses was assessed in twenty children aged between three and four years old.

Four conditions were used, varying in terms of whether stimulus and response were associated or

not and whether responses were object-cued (stimuli are two different objects) or colour-cued

(stimuli are the same object in two different colours). The findings of this study support the

hypothesis that young children have weak inhibitory control, as is interpreted from poor accuracy

on No-go trials compared to Go trials. The study also found that an effect of stimulus-response

association on prepotency can be observed using a Go/No-go task only when responses are

object-cued and not colour-cued. This led to the conclusion that contrary to findings by Simpson,

Upson and Carroll (2017), intention alone is not sufficient to create prepotency in a Go/No-go

task.
 Introduction

Executive function refers to the ability to consider and plan behaviours to fit the goals of a

specific task and includes abilities such as; inhibitory control, planning and working memory

(Biederman et al, 2007). Many of our behaviours can be carried out without the use of executive

function as they are automatic, in that they do not require conscious involvement, similar to a

reflex behaviour (Miller & Wallis, 2009). Mostly this is useful and helps us carry out tasks more

efficiently, but sometimes, the behaviour that is triggered may not be appropriate for goal

attainment in that task (Simpson, Carroll & Riggs, 2014). In situations such as these, inhibitory

control must be used. Inhibitory control is the ability to stop oneself performing a behaviour or

cognitive process that does not aid the attainment of the current task goals (Simpson & Carroll,

2018). Inhibitory control rapidly develops within children of preschool age - between two and

five years - (Carlson, Moses & Claxton, 2004), and continues throughout childhood, albeit at a

steadier rate (Williams, Ponesse, Schachar, Logan & Tannock, 1999).

It has been hypothesized that the reason for such remarkable development in inhibitory control

ability during preschool ages is due to neural development in some brain regions (Dowsett &

Livesey, 2000). Over the years, researchers have attempted to locate the specific brain region

responsible for the development of inhibitory control and other executive functions, but there is

little agreement on the exact neural substrate responsible (Rubia, Smith, Brammer & Taylor,

2003). Researchers do however agree that inhibitory control mechanisms are located in the

frontal brain hemisphere (van Gaal, Ridderinkhof, Fahrenfort, Scholte & Lamme, 2008). It is

suggested that as these frontal brain regions develop, improving neural circuitry improves, as
does inhibitory control abilities, so that, during childhood, inhibitory control improves with age

(Durston, Thomas, Yang, Uluğ, Zimmerman & Casey, 2002).

During a developmental task of inhibitory control, conditions that require this ability will

initially trigger an inappropriate response. These inappropriate responses are known as being

prepotent, in that they are triggered subconsciously by our environment (Simpson & Riggs,

2007). It has been generally accepted that whether a response is prepotent or not depends on the

way an individual conceptualises it (Simpson & Carroll, 2018). When inappropriate prepotent

responses are triggered, inhibitory control is required to stop this behaviour being carried out

(Simpson, Carroll & Riggs, 2014). Simpson and Carroll (2018) suggest that the way children

conceptualise task requirements or instructions influences whether the responses become

prepotent and therefore require the use of inhibitory control. However, complete clarity on how

or why responses become prepotent and require inhibitory control is yet to be established

(Simpson et al, 2012).

The current study will give further insight into which conditions require inhibitory control,

allowing a more in depth understanding of how prepotency is created. Whilst this experiment has

been carried out in a laboratory, it has real world implications for aiding children in the

development of other skills (Simpson, Upson & Carroll, 2017). Developmental research into

inhibitory control ability has found that it has associations with impulsive behaviour

(Nederkoorn, Braet, Van Eijs, Tanghe & Janse, 2006), Theory of Mind development (Carlson &

Moses, 2001) and emotion regulation (Carlson & Wang, 2007). In young children, deficient

inhibitory control ability has been suggested to explain neurodevelopmental disorders such as
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) (Schachar, Mota, Logan, Tannock & Klim,

2000).

Measures of inhibitory control in young children examine whether they are able to stop

themselves giving an incorrect prepotent response (Petersen et al, 2016). Studies measuring

inhibition of prepotent responses in young children tend to use either stimulus-response

compatibility (SRC) tasks or Go/No-go tasks (Simpson, Upson & Carroll, 2017). These two

tasks allow for the assessment of stimulus-response association (Simpson & Riggs, 2007). SRC

tasks require children to inhibit a prepotent response, in that they must respond to a stimulus in

the way that they would normally associate with the other stimuli. An example of an SRC task is

the Day/Night task, which requires children to say “day” to a picture of a moon and “night” to a

picture of the sun (Gerstadt, Hong & Diamond, 1994). Simpson & Riggs (2005) later modified

this task in a way that meant working memory ability did not affect young children’s

performance. The current study used a Go/No-go task to assess inhibitory control in young

children. A Go/No-go task requires participants to respond when they are shown one type or

variation of stimuli (e.g. a hat) and withhold any response when shown a different variation (e.g.

a car). No-go trials require children to use their inhibitory control, in that they must inhibit the

prepotent response.

Using a manual version of the Go/No-go task (the Box Search task), Simpson and Riggs (2007)

assessed under what conditions young children would form inappropriate prepotent responses.

During No-go trials, they found that young children made more errors when the action they were

instructed to do was associated with that object, as opposed to when it was not associated. Their
findings suggest that an action that is associated with that object is harder to inhibit than an

action that is not associated. They proposed that it is this artifact-action association that creates

prepotency in this task and thus makes it difficult to inhibit the response (Simpson & Riggs,

2007). Whilst this study proved important for the understanding of association in creating

prepotency, Simpson, Carroll and Riggs (2014) highlight methodological issues with the study

described. They suggest that the unassociated action children were asked to do was inappropriate

as it served as a second artifact and may have prevented children from making the prepotent

response. Also it caused participants to delay their response which makes responses less

prepotent and therefore means children do not need to rely on their inhibitory control to respond

correctly (Simpson et al 2012).

By contrast, when altering methodology, Simpson, Carroll and Riggs (2014) did not replicate the

finding of an artifact-action association effect on prepotency, instead identifying that children

made an equal number of mistakes in both the action-associated and action-unassociated

conditions. Therefore, implying that actions associated with the object, as well as actions that are

unassociated can be prepotent, but also that task conditions affects the level of prepotency in

associated versus unassociated actions. In the unassociated condition (draw with blue hammer

and do nothing to red hammer), during No-go trials, children were more likely to make

unassociated errors (drawing with the hammer) than associated errors (hammering with the

hammer). Whereas in the associated condition (put blue phone to ear, nothing to red phone),

children did not make any unassociated actions. Simpson, Carroll and Riggs (2014) propose that

intending to make a specific response in each condition is what makes certain actions prepotent.

Instructions for the task involve telling the child to respond with a specific action when shown a
certain object; this causes this action to be primed. Therefore, the actions that have been primed

will need less activation to be produced than those that have not been primed, also making it

more difficult to inhibit this action (Schacter & Buckner, 1998). This supports research by

Simpson and Carroll (2018) in their key finding that conceptualisation of a task can affect

prepotency and performance in young children.

The studies discussed thus far have used action to test for an effect of stimulus-response

association on prepotency. Further research by Simpson, Upson & Carroll (2017) sought to

identify under what conditions prepotency arises; they examined the effect of task type, stimulus-

response association and response type on prepotency. They found that whether responses were

made manually or verbally altered the effect of stimulus-response association for SRC tasks.

Their findings suggest that children find it harder to inhibit associated verbal responses than

unassociated verbal responses, however, there was no difference in accuracy for manual

responses regarding whether they were associated or unassociated responses. Therefore, they

concluded that the effect of association on response prepotency can only be observed if

responses are made verbally, not manually (Simpson, Upson & Carroll, 2017). For this reason,

this study will assess the emergence of prepotency using a verbal Go/No-go task as verbal

responses are suggested more likely to elicit a prepotent response in this task.

In their second experiment, Simpson, Upson and Carroll (2017) used a Go/No-go task to

investigate the effect of stimulus-response association on prepotency. They observed no effect of

association in No-go trials, and that accuracy was poor in both No-go conditions, no matter

whether stimulus and response were associated or not. Their research suggested that a stimulus-
response association effect could only be found when SRC tasks were used, not when a Go/No-

got task was used. They concluded that prepotency arises for different reasons on SRC tasks than

on Go/No-go tasks, suggesting that intention alone created prepotency in Go/No-go tasks of

inhibitory control and stimulus-response association only affects levels of prepotency in SRC

tasks. In order to assess why this is the case, the current study will examine the effect of cue type

and stimulus-response association using a Go/No-go task.

Simpson, Upson and Carroll (2017) suggest that stimulus-response association failed to effect

prepotency in the study because of the way in which the stimuli was cued in the task. If the

children were required to identify between two different stimuli for Go vs No-go trial, this would

require better inhibitory control. For example, in the current study, when stimuli are object cued

and associated with the response, the children have to respond “car” to a picture of a hat and

inhibit this same response when shown a picture of a car. With the use of these conditions, the

methodology of this Go/No-go task will more closely resemble that of an SRC task. This led us

to hypothesize that conditions that are object-cued, as in an SRC task, will elicit more prepotent

responses. If cue type is found to explain the effect of stimulus-response association on

prepotency in Go/No-go tasks, this will allow for an understanding of why Simpson, Upson &

Carroll (2017) found an effect of task type (between SRC and Go/No-go tasks).

Thus far, differences in task conditions have been shown to affect the prepotency of responses on

developmental tests of inhibitory control (Simpson et al 2012). These include task type

(Simpson, Upson & Carroll, 2017), stimulus-response association (Simpson and Riggs, 2007)

and response type (Simpson, Carroll and Riggs, 2014). Following on from this, the current study
aims to investigate the effect of cue type on prepotency and its relationship with stimulus-

response association.

Following this research by Simpson, Upson and Carroll (2017), this study will use a series of

Go/No-go tasks to assess the effect of cue type (object cued vs colour cued) and stimulus-

response association (associated vs unassociated) on prepotency. The study consists of four

Go/No-go conditions: Object Associated, Colour Associated, Object Unassociated, and Colour

Unassociated. In the Associated conditions, children will be asked to respond to objects that are

familiar to them and in the unassociated conditions; the objects will be unfamiliar as in previous

research. The current study aimed to assess the effect of association and cue type in young

children’s, aged between three and four years old, performance in a verbal Go/No-go task of

inhibitory control. Predictions based on this aim and previous research are that children will

struggle to inhibit prepotent responses on No-go trials, showing low inhibitory control. Also, that

they will perform less accurately when prepotent responses are object rather than colour cued

when stimuli and response are associated.

 Methods

Participants

Participants were 20 children aged between three and four years old, with the mean age being

3.35 years. Seven participants were boys and 13 girls. All children attended a preschool in

Maidstone, England and English was their first language. Informed consent was obtained from

the parents and Manager of the Nursery (See Appendices A-C for letters sent to parents and

Nursery Manager).

Design

A repeated measures 2x2 design was used with the two independent variables being the cue type

(colour vs object type) and stimulus-response association (associated vs unassociated). The

dependent variable was accuracy (%).

Apparatus

Four A4 sized flip books were used to present stimuli to the children with one flipbook per

condition.

Stimuli

Each piece of paper in a flip book had one image printed onto it. Four types of images were used;

cars, hats, spikey balls and hoof picks. Four of the eight objects were familiar to the children and

four were not. One pair was two cars in different colours (red and blue), the second pair was a

car and a hat, the third pair was hoof picks in different colours (red and blue) and the fourth a
hoof pick and a spikey ball. An illustration of stimuli used and requirements for each condition

can be seen in Figure 1.

Object Associated Object Unassociated

Car
Car

Car
Car

Colour Associated Colour Unassociated

Figure 1- Stimuli and procedure used in Go/No-go task

Procedure

Each participant took part in all four conditions: colour associated, colour unassociated, object

type associated, object type unassociated. The tasks were spread out over two sessions so that

participants took part in two conditions in each session. Participants were put into one of four

groups which differed in terms of their condition order (this can be seen in Table 1) so that the

order that the tasks were presented was counterbalanced.

Each condition consisted of four practice trials (N,G,N,G) to test the children’s understanding of

the instructions, whereby they received feedback dependent on whether they gave the correct or

incorrect response. This was then followed by 20 test trials (ten go, ten no-go) whereby no

feedback was given. Stimuli were presented to participants in a pseudo-random order

(N,G,N,G,N,N,G,G,N,G,N,N,G,G,N,G). The stimuli were presented one at a time and children

were given two seconds to respond, after this time their response was recorded as a No-go

response and the experimenter would carry on and present the next stimulus.

Group Number Session 1 Conditions Session 2 Conditions

1 Object Associated Colour Associated
Object Unassociated Colour Unassociated
2 Object Unassociated Colour Unassociated
Object Associated Colour Associated
3 Colour Associated Object Associated
Colour Unassociated Object Unassociated
4 Colour Unassociated Object Unassociated
Colour Associated Object Associated
Table 1- Counterbalancing of task condition presentation

All conditions required participants to take part in a Go/No-go task. Before each condition

begun, the instructions were explained to the child and were repeated if needed before going on

to test trials. The experimenter said “when I show you this picture, *show picture of a hat*, I

want you to say car. When I show you this picture, *show picture of a car*, I want you to say

nothing”. In the colour associated condition, children were shown two pictures of a car, one is

blue and the other is red. The children were asked to say car when they were shown the red car

(Go trial) and to say nothing when they were shown the blue car (No-go trial). In the object
associated condition, children were again shown two pictures, this time one of the pictures was

of a car and the other was of a hat. They were asked to say car when they were shown a picture

of a hat (Go trial) and say nothing when they were presented with a car (No-go trial). In the

colour unassociated condition, the children were shown two pictures of a hoof-pick, one is blue

and one is red. The children were asked to say “car” to the red hoof-pick (Go trials) and nothing

to the blue hoof-pick (No-go trials). Finally, in the object unassociated condition, the children

were presented with two pictures, one of a spikey ball and one of a hoof-pick, they were

instructed to say “car” to the hoof-pick (Go trial) and nothing to the spikey ball (No-go trial).

Instructions for each of the conditions can be seen in Table 2.

Condition Go Trial No Go Trial

Object Associated “Car” to hat Nothing to car

Colour Associated “Car” to red car Nothing to blue car

Object Unassociated “Car” to hoof pick Nothing to spiky ball

Colour Unassociated “Car” to red hoof pick Nothing to blue hoof pick
Table 2- Instructions for each condition
 Results

Trials were split into Go trials (where participants were required to respond) and No-go trials

(where participants were told not to respond). After the raw data was recorded, averages for

performance accuracy were calculated for each of the conditions, data were processed so that

each participant had two scores for each condition, one for each of the trial types, so that every

participant had eight scores. Practice trials were not included in the data or analyses.

1
0.9
0.8
0.7
Associated (Go)
0.6
Mean Accuracy (%)

Unassociated (Go)
0.5
Unassociated (No
0.4 go)
0.3 Associated (No go)
0.2
0.1
0
Colour Object
Cue Type

Figure 1- Mean accuracy for each condition for Go and No-go trials. Error bars indicate the

standard error of the means.

Mean accuracy for each of the four conditions in both Go and No-go trials is shown in Figure 1.

Performance was poor on No-go trials (Mean- .57), but near ceiling in Go trials (M- .92). There

were no significant effects of gender. However, an independent samples t-test found a significant

difference in accuracy between three and four year olds, t(18)= .07, p=.47 with four year olds

performing marginally more accurately across the conditions (M-.78, Standard Deviation-.20)

than did three year olds (M-.72, SD-.03).

Data were analysed using a 2x2x2 repeated-measures ANOVA, with trial type (Go/No-go), cue

type (object/colour) and association (associated/unassociated) as factors. A significant effect of

trial type was found F(1, 19)= 22.84, p<.001 with children performing more accurately on Go

trials (m-.92, sd-.10) than on No-go trials (m-.57, sd-.29). There was also a significant effect of

cue type F(1,19)= 4.56, p=.046 with children performing better when presented with colour cues

(m-.79, sd- .19) than object cues (m-.70, sd-.15). A significant effect of association was also

found F(1,19)= 4.88, p=.04 due to better accuracy in unassociated conditions (M-.79, SD-.18)

than associated conditions (M-.70, SD-.16). A significant interaction was found between cue type

and association F(1,19)=7.30, p=.014. However, there was not found to be a significant

interaction between cue type and trial type F(1,19)=.58, p=.456 or between association and trial

type F(1,19)=3.01, p=.099 and there was no significant three way interaction between trial type,

cue type and association F(1,19)=3.68, p=.07.

 1
0.9
0.8

Mean Accuracy (%)

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4 Associated
0.3 Unassociated

0.2
0.1
0
Colour Object
Cue Type

Figure 2- Mean accuracy for each condition for No-go trials. Error bars indicate the standard

error of the means.

A 2x2 repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted to analyse the results from just the No-go

trials with cue type (object/colour) and association (associated/unassociated) as factors. Mean

accuracy for No-go trials can be seen in Figure 2. No significant effect of cue type was found

F(1,19)= 2.5, p=.13. However, there was a significant main effect of association F(1,19)= 5.25,

p=.034, with children performing more accurately in unassociated conditions than in associated

conditions. A significant interaction between cue type and association was found for No-go trials

F(1,19)= 10.15, p=.005. A paired samples t-test was carried out to further investigate this and

found that performance differed significantly between the object associated and the object

unassociated condition t(19)=3.48, p=.002 but not between the colour associated and colour

unassociated condition t(19)=.16, p=.88. Therefore performance was only affected by association

in object-cued conditions and not colour-cued conditions. Another paired samples t-test found

that there was a significant difference between the object and colour cued associated conditions
t(19)=3.03, p=.007, but not between object and colour cued unassociated conditions t(19)=.27,

p=.787. Therefore cue type only alters participants’ performance in the No-go trials when the

stimuli are associated, not when they are unassociated.

1
0.98
0.96
Mean Accuracy (%)

0.94
0.92
0.9
0.88 Associated
0.86 Unassociated
0.84
0.82
0.8
Colour Object
Cue Type

Figure 3- Mean accuracy for each condition for Go trials. Error bars indicate the standard error

of the means.

Another 2x2 ANOVA was conducted looking only at Go trials, with cue type (object/colour) and

association (associated/unassociated) as factors. Mean accuracy for Go trials can be seen in

Figure 3. As expected, it did not find significant main effects of cue type F(1,19)=2.95, p=.102

or association F(1,19)=.297, p=.592. It also did not find a significant interaction between cue

type and association F(1,19)=.403, p=.533.

 Discussion

The current study sought to investigate whether stimulus-response association and cue type

affected prepotency using a Go/No-go task testing inhibitory control. Therefore, this study

assessed the stimulus-response association effect using two cue type variations. Object cued

conditions (in which stimuli were two different objects) were compared to colour-cued

conditions (in which stimuli were the same objects in two different colours). The association

conditions in this study were the same as those used in research by Simpson, Upson and Carroll

(2017), so that associated conditions (in which stimuli were associated with the required

response) were compared to unassociated conditions (in which stimuli were not associated to the

required response). We predicted that children would perform better in Go trials than they do in

No-go trials. Also, that participants will perform more accurately when trials are colour cued

than object cued and when stimuli and responses are unassociated than when they are associated.

As hypothesized, this study found that participants performed better across all four conditions on

Go trials than they did in No-go trials, due to No-go trials requiring children to use their

inhibitory control in order to respond correctly. This finding supports research which concludes

that young children have weak inhibitory control (Durston et al, 2002) as well as that which has

found that young children struggle to inhibit responses on this task of inhibitory control such as:

Simpson, Carroll and Riggs (2014) and Simpson, Upson and Carroll (2017).

This study also found that children who were four years old gave more accurate responses than

the three year olds, suggesting that four year olds have better inhibitory control ability than do
three year olds. This supports research by Best, Miller and Jones (2009) who found that the

prefrontal cortex, the area thought to be the home of inhibitory control, shows improvement

during preschool ages.

The current study found that the way responses were cued (object-cued or colour-cued) or

whether stimulus and response were associated did not affect participant’s performance on Go

trials. This was expected as Go trials did not require the children to use their inhibitory control so

it found that their performance did not differ across the conditions. Participants showed near

ceiling accuracy in Go trials for all tasks, supporting previous research such as that by

Verbruggen and Logan (2008).

The main effect of Association that was found in this study reveals that participants performed

more accurately when stimulus and response were not associated with one another, supporting

our hypothesis of an effect of stimulus-response association on prepotency. This suggests that

responses were more prepotent when stimulus and response are associated (e.g. say “car” to hat

and nothing to car) than when they are not associated (e.g. say “car” to hoof pick and nothing to

spikey ball).This supports the finding of an effect of stimulus-response association on

developmental tests of inhibitory control found by Simpson and Riggs (2007). This study did not

replicate the findings of Simpson, Upson and Carroll (2017) which suggested that stimulus-

response association did not affect response prepotrency in a Go/No-go task of inhibitory control

with young children. Instead, it provides an explanation for why they did not find the same

association effect in the Go/No-go tasks as they did in the SRC task.
Research by Simpson and Riggs (2007) lead us to hypothesize that in this Go-No-go task,

responses would be more prepotent when stimuli and response were associated to one another

than when they are unassociated. However, research by Simpson, Upson and Carroll (2017)

suggested that a stimulus-response association effect could be observed only in SRC tasks and

not in Go/No-go tasks, therefore, this study intended to explain why this was the case. We

hypothesized that the reason this effect was not found with a Go/No-go task was due to the way

that the stimuli was presented to participants. This would mean that if stimuli were to be

presented in a different way that an effect of stimulus-response association would be observed.

No main effect of cue type was found in this study, suggesting that participants did not show a

difference in accuracy if responses were colour-cued or object-cued. However, further analyses

revealed that the main effect of stimulus-response association could be at least partly explained

by cue type. The study found that performance was affected by association in object-cued

conditions but not colour-cued conditions. Also that cue type altered participants’ performance in

the No-go trials when stimuli were associated, not unassociated. This study appears to have

corroborated our hypothesis as when responses were cued by two different objects (object-cued)

rather than two of the same object in different colours (colour-cued) a stimulus-response

association effect on prepotency was found. In other words, cue type can partially explain the

effect of association on prepotency in a Go/No-go task of developmental inhibitory control.

With altered methodology which more closely resembled that of an SRC task, this study found

an effect of stimulus-response association on prepotency. Prepotency, as can be inferred from

low accuracy on No-go trials, was higher for associated conditions than unassociated conditions
overall, but was highest on associated conditions which were object cued. That is, young

children struggle most when inhibiting responses which are associated with the stimulus and

when the stimuli distinguishing whether they respond or not are two different objects. This

provides evidence for the suggestion that an effect of stimulus-response association was not

found in Go/No-go tasks in research by Simpson, Upson and Carroll (2017) because of the way

responses were cued.

However, when stimulus and response were not associated, some prepotency was still created, as

children did not show the same level of accuracy in No-go trials for unassociated conditions as

they did in Go trials, when no inhibitory control was needed. This suggests that young children

still have some difficulty in inhibiting a response that is not associated with the stimuli. This was

found regardless of whether responses were object-cued or colour-cued, meaning cue type

cannot fully explain why an effect of stimulus-response association has not previously been

observed in tests of inhibitory control that use a Go/No-go task. This is thought to be due to

children’s intention to respond, meaning that the response is primed. This priming effect that

happens during Go trials bleeds over into No-go trials so that an incorrect response is given

(Simpson et al, 2012). During Go/No-go tasks, young children have a tendency to respond to

everything that they see, whether they have been told to do so or not. This may explain why

prepotency can still be noted in unassociated conditions in Go/No-go tasks and why accuracy on

No-go tasks for colour-cued unassociated conditions does not match that of Go trials.
Further research should aim to investigate under what conditions prepotency can be created on

developmental tests of inhibitory control. Researchers have now assessed the effect of cue type,

task type, response type and stimulus-response association but still it is not completely clear why

prepotency arises, as even when all these factors are controlled for, prepotency can still be

observed in young children. However, the current study allows for a new insight as to why no

effect of stimulus-response association has been found when using Go/No-go tasks. It may be

interesting to consider whether cue type would affect prepotency of manual responses in No/Go-

tasks as previously an effect of stimulus-response association could not be found in manual

Go/No-go tasks (Simpson, Upson & Carroll, 2017).

To conclude, this research allows for a more in depth understanding of why prepotency arises in

a Go/No-go task of inhibitory control in young children. It can be seen from this research that

cue type (whether responses were object-cued or colour-cued) partially explains the effect of

stimulus-response association on prepotency in Go/No-go tasks. Contrary to research by

Simpson, Upson and Carrol (2017), this study proposes that intention to respond is not sufficient

by itself to make a response prepotent in a Go/No-go task.

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 Appendix A

Inhibitory Control in Children

Dear Parents/ Carers,

What is our research about?

We are studying children's inhibitory control. Inhibitory control is the ability to alter
familiar patterns of thinking and behavior, as well as to resist temptation. As an adult,
for example, you can use inhibitory control when deciding to take a new approach to
dealing with a difficult member of your family, or when resisting the temptation to eat
food which you think is unhealthy. Inhibitory control is crucial to the way that we take
charge of our own lives. It is one of the few human abilities that we all value. We all
want to be in control of our own lives, even if what we want to do is different for each
of us.

Psychologists have been studying Inhibitory control, in its various forms, for about 50
years. It is clear from this research that inhibitory control is useful. Adults with good
inhibitory control have lives that are happier, more successful and fulfilled. For children
too, good inhibitory control brings benefits. For example, good inhibitory control is
actually more important than intelligence when it comes to doing well at school.

At the University of Essex, we are studying how inhibitory control emerges. We know
that it improves across the whole of childhood from infancy to adolescence, although
there is usually a big leap-forward at the end of the ‘terrible twos’. We are trying to
understand exactly what changes when inhibitory control improves. We are also really
interested in working out when inhibitory control is needed, and in how children can be
helped when their inhibitory control fails.

What is your child being asked to do?

The aim of the study is to assess the differences in inhibitory control in children aged 3
to 4 years. Children will participate in the study over two sessions; split over two days,
the session will last approximately 30 minutes. The task requires children to take part in
a “Go/No-go” experiment, whereby they will give one word responses to simple stimuli,
presented using a computer programme.

What will we do with the information we collect?

All the information that we collect is ‘anonymized’. Your child will be given a
‘participant id’ (a number) and this is what we keep when we leave your nursery or
school. In this way, it is not possible to connect an individual child with the scores they
get on our tasks. Information about which children took part in our research is kept by
your nursery or school, but they do not keep a record of children’s performance. The
information we collect may be presented at conferences or written-up in research
journals and books. If we think our findings are of wider interest we may present them
in more main-stream media. In whatever way we do this, we only discuss overall
patterns in children’s performance, and not what individual children did or did not do.

Do you want any more information?

This research is being conducted under the supervision of Dr Andrew Simpson in the
Department of Psychology at the University of Essex. Our department’s website is
www.essex.ac.uk/psychology, and you can find out more about Dr Simpson’s research
at:

https://www.essex.ac.uk/psychology/staff/profile.aspx?ID=2440

If you have any questions about this research, you can contact Dr Simpson by email at
asimpson@essex.ac.uk.

Thank you for considering participating in this study. We can only do our research
with the help of nurseries, schools, parents and guardians. We are really grateful to
you for your support.

This research will be conducted during the week beginning 25th February 2019.

Please note; If you DO NOT want your child/children to take part, please fill out the
information below:

Name of child/children: ………………………………………………

Parent/Carer name: …………………………………………………….

Parent/Carer signature: ……………………………………………...

 Appendix B

Inhibitory Control in Children

Date of approval: February, 2018

Invitation to our study

We would like to invite you to give consent for your pupils to participate in this research
project. You should only give your consent if you want to (choosing not to take part will not
disadvantage you in any way). Before you decide whether you want to take part, it is important
for you to read the following information carefully and discuss it with others if you wish. Ask us
if there is anything that is not clear or you would like more information.

Background on the project

We are studying children's inhibitory control. Inhibitory control is the ability to alter familiar
patterns of thinking and behaviour, as well as to resist temptation. As an adult, for example,
you can use inhibitory control when deciding to take a new approach to dealing with a difficult
member of your family, or when resisting the temptation to eat food which you think is
unhealthy. Inhibitory control is crucial to the way that we take charge of our own lives. It is one
of the few human abilities that we all value. We all want to be in control of our own lives, even
if what we want to do is different for each of us.

Psychologists have been studying Inhibitory control, in its various forms, for about 50 years. It is
clear from this research that inhibitory control is useful. Adults with good inhibitory control
have lives that are happier, more successful and fulfilled. For children too, good inhibitory
control brings benefits. For example, good inhibitory control is actually more important than
intelligence when it comes to doing well at school.

At the University of Essex, we are studying how inhibitory control emerges. We know that it
improves across the whole of childhood from infancy to adolescence, although there is usually
a big leap-forward at the end of the ‘terrible twos’. We are trying to understand exactly what
changes when inhibitory control improves. We are also really interested in working out when
inhibitory control is needed, and in how children can be helped when their inhibitory control
fails.

Experiment

The aim of the study is to assess the differences in inhibitory control in children aged 3 to 4
years. Children will participate in the study over two sessions; split over two days, the session
will last approximately 30 minutes. The task requires children to take part in a “Go/No-go”
experiment, whereby they will give one word responses to simple stimuli, presented using a
computer programme.

Informed consent

Should you agree to take part in this experiment, you will be asked to sign a consent form
before the experiment commences.

Withdrawal

Your participation is voluntary and you will be free to withdraw from the project at any time
without giving any reason and without penalty. If you wish to withdraw, you simply need to
notify the experimenter. If any data have already been collected, upon withdrawal, your data
will be destroyed, unless you say that you are happy for us to use such data for the scientific
purposes of the project.

Data gathered

We will collect the following data for each participant; age, gender and inhibitory control scores
using the responses provided during the experiment.

All the information that we collect is ‘anonymized’. Your child will be given a ‘participant id’ (a
number) and this is what we keep when we leave your nursery or school. In this way, it is not
possible to connect an individual child with the scores they get on our tasks. Information about
which children took part in our research is kept by your nursery or school, but they do not keep
a record of children’s performance. Signed consent forms will be kept separately from
individual experimental data and locked in a drawer.

Findings

After the end of the project, we may publish the findings of our experiments. The information
we collect may be presented at conferences or written-up in research journals and books. If we
think our findings are of wider interest, we may present them in more main-stream publications
or on social media. In whatever way we do this, we only discuss overall patterns in children’s
performance, and not what individual children did or did not do.

Concerns and complaints

If you have any concerns about any aspect of the study or you have a complaint, in the first
instance please contact the principal investigator of the project (see contact details below). If
are still concerned or you think your complaint has not been addressed to your satisfaction,
please contact the Director of Research in the principal investigator’s department (see below).
If you are still not satisfied, please contact the University’s Research Governance and Planning
Manager (Sarah Manning-Press).

Ethical approval

This project has been reviewed on behalf of the University of Essex Ethics Committee and had
been given approval with the following number AS1801.

Contact details

Principal investigator
Dr Andrew Simpson, Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park,
Colchester, CO43SQ. Email asimpson@essex.ac.uk, telephone 01206-874022.

Director of Research
Professor Silke Pulmann, Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park,
Colchester, CO43SQ. Email paulmann@essex.ac.uk, telephone 01206- 873422.

University of Essex Research Governance and Planning Manager

Sarah Manning-Press, Research & Enterprise Office, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, CO4
3SQ, Colchester. Email: sarahm@essex.ac.uk, telephone 01206-873561.
 Appendix C

CONSENT FORM

Title of the Project: Inhibitory Control in Children

Researchers: Millie Watts, Dr Andrew Simpson

Please initial box

1. I confirm that I have read and understand the Information Sheet dated
Feb 2018 for the above study. I have had the opportunity to consider
the information, ask questions and have had these questions
answered satisfactorily.

2. I understand that the participation of my pupils is voluntary and that I

am free to withdraw from the project at any time without giving any
reason and without penalty.

3. I understand that no identifiable data will be kept by the research

team, and that confidentiality of participants will be maintained.

4. I understand that data collected in this project might be shared as

appropriate and for publication of findings, in which case data will
remain completely anonymous.

5. I agree for my pupils to take part in the above study.

Name Date Signature

____________________ ______________ ___________________________

ATTACH SHEET WITH THE NAMES OF CHILDREN WHO HAVE BEEN APPROVED TO PARTICIPATE
IN THIS EXPERIMENT