Abstract: This project investigates how children develop the ability to control their thoughts and language to stay focused and achieve goals—skills known as executive control, which are crucial for learning, cognitive development, and long-term success. While these general abilities have been widely studied, much less is known about semantic control: the capacity to focus on less obvious aspects of meaning depending on context, rather than automatically retrieving the most dominant interpretation. Semantic control is closely linked to how children build and access conceptual knowledge, and it may vary depending on the structure of the language they speak, yet these aspects remain largely unexplored. Additionally, the development of these control processes is influenced by the maturation of the brain, but the relationship between cognitive and neural development is still poorly understood. This project aims to fill these gaps by examining, for the first time, how executive and semantic control develop and interact at three levels: behavior, computational modeling, and brain function. A battery of gamified tasks will be created to assess these abilities in English- and Italian-speaking children of different ages through online platforms. Their brain activity during these tasks will be recorded using high-density electroencephalography (EEG), allowing for a detailed analysis of brain organization and function. Using advanced analytical methods, the study will explore how these control abilities develop, how they are related, how language influences them, and how they are supported by neural mechanisms. The findings will lead to a new theoretical model of cognitive control development that integrates semantic control, opening new research directions in neuroscience and education, and supporting the creation of targeted interventions for both typically and atypically developing children.

Contatti: 
Maria Montefinese: maria.montefinese@unipd.it
Silvia Benavides Varela: silvia.benavides@unipd.it
Sito: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101150190