these genetic variations. In the next section we will consider how 

 experiences of the infant and child relate to these genetic variations 

 in shaping the executive network. 



DEVELOPMENT 



We (Posner and Rothbart, 2007) have been interested in how the 

 attention system develops in infancy and early childhood. The de- 

 velopment of executive attention can be easily observed both by 

 questionnaire and cognitive tasks after about age 3-4, when parents 

 can identify the ability of their children to regulate their emotions 

 and control their behavior in accord with social demands. However, 

 in infancy it has been difficult to pose questions that refer to effortful 

 control because most regulation seems automatic or involves the 

 caregiver's intervention. Obviously infants cannot be instructed to 

 press a key in accord with a particular rule. 



Longitudinal Study 



We have been examining executive attention in infancy with a 

 view to seeing if we can predict later executive attention and ef- 

 fortful control from infant behavior. One study examined the ability 

 of infants of 7 months to detect errors (Berger et al., 2006). In this 

 study, infants observed a scenario in which one or two puppets were 

 hidden behind a screen. A hand was seen to reach behind the screen 

 and either add or remove a puppet. When the screen was removed 

 there was either the correct number of puppets or an incorrect num- 

 ber. Wynn (1992) found that infants of 7 months looked longer when 

 the number was in error than when it was correct. Whether the 

 increased looking time involved the same executive attention cir- 

 cuitry that was active in adults was unknown. Berger replicated the 

 Wynn study but used 128-channel EEG to determine the brain ac- 

 tivity that occurred during error trials in comparison with that found 

 when the infant viewed a correct solution. The results, as illustrated 

 in figure 8, indicated that the same EEG component over the same 

 electrode sites differed between conditions in infants and adults. 

 Since this EEG component had been shown to come from the an- 

 terior cingulate gyrus (Dehaene et al., 1994) it appears that the same 



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