Inhibition and cognitive development: object, number, categorization, and reasoning

doi:10.1016/S0885-2014(00)00015-0

Cognitive Development

Volume 15, Issue 1, January–March 2000, Pages 63-73

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0885-2014(00)00015-0 Get rights and content

Abstract

In the early 1990s, the concept of inhibition sparked a new surge of interest in cognitive psychology, both in North America and in Europe. In the framework of that research trend, it is proposed here that cognitive development cannot be reduced to the coordination–activation of structural units (as in Jean Piaget's structuralist theory and in the neo-structuralist models), but that development also often involves inhibiting a competing structure or scheme. This approach, which views the processes of selection–inhibition as age- and domain-specific, is illustrated by four experimental examples (from infancy to adulthood): object construction, number, categorization, and reasoning.

Section snippets

Object construction

The question of the relationship between cognitive development and inhibition becomes a relevant one as soon as the basic unit of reality, the permanent object, is in place in the infant. Research on infant oculomotor activity (the study of visual fixation time), which uses the violation-of-expectancy paradigm, has shown that early object permanence already exists at the age of 4 or 5 months Baillargeon, 1987, Baillargeon et al., 1985. How, then, can one explain the well-known A-not-B error,

Number, categorization, and reasoning

The next three examples concern logico-mathematical operations (number, categorization, and reasoning) and show that the relationship between cognitive development and inhibition continues to be a relevant issue in older children, adolescents, and even adults. Hence, the recurring role of inhibition when object unity is inserted into more complex activities.

New stages of development

In all of these key examples, the issue is one of determining what stems from the “non-rational” or “insufficiently rational” subject (lack of a cognitive structure or competence such as object permanence, number, class inclusion, deduction) and what stems from inhibitory inefficiency, i.e., the inability to inhibit a competing structure that is interfering in working memory. In this framework, the inhibitory mechanism is regarded as age- and domain-specific. Other examples could be given here,

Acknowledgements

This research project was conducted at the Laboratoire Cognition and Communication, which is supported by the Université René Descartes (Paris 5), the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).

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Because intuitive conceptions coexist with scientific conceptions, several authors have argued that scientific reasoning sometimes requires inhibiting intuitive conceptions in contexts where they conflict with scientific ones (Babai, Eidelman, & Stavy, 2012; Babai, Sekal, & Stavy, 2010). This view is convergent with studies showing that inhibitory control is a fundamental process for the development of complex skills (Borst, Aïte, & Houdé, 2015; Casey & Caudle, 2013; Diamond, 2013; Houdé, 2000) such as arithmetic (e.g., Espy et al., 2004; Gilmore et al., 2013; Roell, Viarouge, Houdé, & Borst, 2019), reading (Borst, Ahr, Roell, & Houdé, 2014), reasoning (for a review, see Houdé & Borst, 2015), and decision making (for a review, see Cassotti, Aïte, Osmont, Houdé, & Borst, 2014). More generally, inhibitory control is necessary at any age to avoid using a misleading heuristic in a context where it interferes with the strategy (or the strategies) leading to the correct answer (for reviews, see Bjorklund & Harnishfeger, 1995; Borst et al., 2015; Diamond, 2013; Houdé & Borst, 2015).
Intuitive conceptions represent common obstacles to conceptual learning in science. A growing number of studies demonstrate that when learning occurs, these intuitive conceptions are not replaced by scientific conceptions but rather coexist with them and thus need to be inhibited to prevent systematic errors. However, to date no study has demonstrated that the increasing ability to mobilize a given scientific conception is rooted in the increasing ability to inhibit the intuitive conception that interferes with it. In the current study, we investigated whether the increasing ability from childhood to adulthood to solve a scientific problem regarding the buoyancy of marbles of different sizes and densities is rooted in the increasing ability to inhibit the “bigger objects sink more” intuitive conception. To do so, we designed a negative priming paradigm in which 11-year-old children, 17-year-old adolescents, and 24-year-old adults were asked to choose which of two marbles of various sizes and densities sinks more. Negative priming effects reported in children and adolescents suggest that, unlike adults, they must inhibit the “bigger objects sink more” intuitive conception to determine, for instance, that a small marble with high density (e.g., small lead marble) will sink more than a bigger marble with a lower density (e.g., big wooden marble). We also found that the amplitude of negative priming effects decreased with age, suggesting that the level of exposition to the scientific knowledge of buoyancy (increasing with age) may decrease the need to inhibit the “bigger objects sink more” intuitive conception.
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In a second fMRI study (Poirel et al., 2012), we demonstrated that the prefrontal activation (i.e., the blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal), specifically in the right inferior frontal gyrus, observed when schoolchildren succeeded at the Piaget number conservation task was correlated to their behavioral performance on a Stroop-like measure of inhibitory function development (Fuster, 2003; Wright et al., 2003; Aron et al., 2004, 2014). These new results in schoolchildren fit well with previous brain imaging data showing a key role of prefrontal inhibitory control training when adolescents or adults (belonging to Stage 4 in Piaget's theory) spontaneously fail to block their perceptual intuitions (or bias, heuristics) to activate logico-mathematical algorithms (i.e., deductive rules) in reasoning tasks (Houdé, 2000, 2007, 2019; Houdé et al., 2000, 2001; Houdé and Tzourio-Mazoyer, 2003). If we have “two minds in one brain” as stated by Evans (2003) or, in other words, two ways of thinking and reasoning, i.e., “fast and slow” (Kahneman, 2011), currently called “System 1” (intuitive system) and “System 2” (analytic system), then the crucial challenge is to learn to inhibit the misleading heuristics from System 1 when the more analytic and effortful System 2 (logico-mathematical algorithms) is the way to solve the problem (Houdé, 2000, 2019; Borst et al., 2013).
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View full text

Inhibition and cognitive development: object, number, categorization, and reasoning

Abstract

Section snippets

Object construction

Number, categorization, and reasoning

New stages of development

Acknowledgements

Cognition

Dev Rev

Trends Neurosci

Cognit Dev

NeuroImage

Cognit Dev

Brain Cognit

Cognit Dev

Trends Cognit Sci

Cognit Dev

Cognition

J Exp Child Psychol

Cognit Dev

Trends Cognit Sci

Working Memory

Working memory

Science

Object permanence in 3.5- and 4.5-month-old infants

Dev Psychol

Physical reasoning in infancy

The relations between frontal brain electrical activity and cognitive development during infancy

Child Dev

Brain development over the first year of life

Logique et Bricolage Chez l'enfant

In search of a metatheory for cognitive development (or, Piaget is dead and I don't feel so good)

Child Dev

The resources construct in cognitive development: diverse sources of evidence and a theory of inefficient inhibition

Dev Rev

Ordering of the numerosities 1 to 9 by monkeys

Science

Infancy

Arithmetic in the cradle

Nature

The role of inhibitory processes in young children's difficulties with deception and false belief

Child Dev

From evolution to behavior: evolutionary psychology as the missing link

A simple model of prefrontal cortex function in delayed-response tasks

J Cognit Neurosci

Neuropsychological insights into the meaning of object concept development

Understanding the A-not-B error: working memory vs. reinforced response, or active trace vs. latent trace

Dev Sci

Rethinking Innateness: A Connectionist Perspective on Development

Biases in Human Reasoning

Matching bias in conditional reasoning

Thinking Reasoning

Human Reasoning. The Psychology of Deduction

Rationality in reasoning: the problem of deductive competence

Curr Psychol Cognit