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Comment
. 2011 Apr;3(2):253-6.
doi: 10.1111/j.1756-8765.2011.01137.x. Epub 2011 Mar 17.

The other side of cognitive control: can a lack of cognitive control benefit language and cognition?

Evangelia G Chrysikou  1 , Jared M Novick, John C Trueswell, Sharon L Thompson-Schill
Affiliations
Comment

The other side of cognitive control: can a lack of cognitive control benefit language and cognition?

Evangelia G Chrysikou et al. Top Cogn Sci. 2011 Apr.

Abstract

Cognitive control refers to the regulation of mental activity to support flexible cognition across different domains. Cragg and Nation (2010) propose that the development of cognitive control in children parallels the development of language abilities, particularly inner speech. We suggest that children's late development of cognitive control also mirrors their limited ability to revise misinterpretations of sentence meaning. Moreover, we argue that for certain tasks, a tradeoff between bottom-up (data-driven) and top-down (rule-based) thinking may actually benefit performance in both children and adults. Specifically, we propose that a lack of cognitive control may promote important aspects of cognitive development, like language acquisition and creativity.

Keywords: Cognitive control; Cognitive flexibility; Creativity; Hypofrontality; Language comprehension; Language learning; Prefrontal cortex.

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References

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