Intraindividual dynamics of primary school students' executive functioning: accuracy and response-time

Journal article

We go beyond cross-sectional studies of executive functioning (EF) to investigate intraindividual dynamics of accuracy and response-times. Forty-three 8–11 year-old children (M_age = 9 years 11 months, 51.2 % boys) completed the Mixed block (including both congruent and incongruent trials) of the Hearts and Flowers task on tablets twice per school-day during two weeks (n_ti = 651). Specifying Residual Dynamic Structural Equation Models (RDSEM) novel findings emerged. Children became less accurate and respond faster over time. Both state-accuracy and state-response-time were relatively stable over time. State-accuracy-on-response-time-slopes showed that children with a relatively lower trait-accuracy performed more accurately when they slowed down. In contrast, children with a relatively higher trait-accuracy performed at the same level of accuracy regardless whether they accelerated or decelerated. An intraindividual approach to EF provides an important window into the children's accuracy-speed trade-off and cognition in a naturalistic school context.

Authors: Malmberg, L-E; Lo, HTF; Heemskerk, CHHM; Esser, P; Dawes, H

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Journal: Learning and Individual Differences
• Volume: 120
• Article number: 102658
• Publication date: 2025-03-11
• Acceptance date: 2025-02-11
• DOI: 10.1016/j.lindif.2025.102658
• EISSN: 1873-3425
• ISSN: 1041-6080
• Language: English
• Keywords: accuracy; executive functioning; intraindividual; residual dynamic structural equation model (RDSEM); response time; ecological momentary assessment