INFLUENCE OF EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING ON MEMORY FOR CONTEXTUAL DETAILS AND FALSE RECOGNITION

Abstract

No previous studies had examined how all constructs of executive functioning (i.e., conflict inhibition, delay inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and working memory) relate to memory for contextual details and false recognition in early childhood controlling for general intelligence. Three and six-year-old children performed a laboratory-based episodic memory task and a battery of neuropsychological tasks. The relation between executive functioning and false recognition was diminished taking general intellectual ability into account. Executive functioning did not predict memory for contextual details in the full sample. However, when children who were at chance at recalling contextual details were excluded from analysis, executive functioning showed a trend for accounting for variance beyond age group and general intellectual ability. The inability of this effect to reach conventional statistical significance was likely due low statistical power resulting from the sample size reduction. Specifically, accuracy on the day/night task, a measure of conflict inhibition, was a significant predictor.