It’s happens to all of us: times when we simply cannot stop ourselves mid-action, whether running a yellow (or red) light, making an inappropriate comment, or reaching for our buzzing phone during dinner. Most of the time, adults can overcome these impulses. Children, however, are notoriously different – most of the time seemingly incapable of curbing impulsive responses. New research suggests the problem is not an inability to stop but rather that they lack awareness of their environment.
Our ability to proactively monitor our surroundings is what allows us to stop mid-action, says Yuko Munakata of the University of Colorado Boulder, who will presenting new work at the CNS conference on Tuesday. She, along with Nicolas Chevalier of the University of Edinburgh and Christopher Chatham of Brown University, tested this idea in 7- to 9-year-olds, seeing if monitoring their environments improved their ability to subsequently stop behaviors compared to simply telling them to stop.
Chatham, who will be co-chairing the session at the CNS meeting about response inhibition, talked with CNS about this new research and how it fits into the big picture of differences between children’s and adults’ capabilities.