Dumontheil, I; Wolf, LK; Blakemore, SJ; (2016) Audience effects on the neural correlates of relational reasoning in adolescence. Neuropsychologia , 87 pp. 85-95. 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.05.001.

Preview

Text Audience effects on the neural correlates of relational reasoning in adolescence.pdf - Published Version Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Adolescents are particularly sensitive to peer influence. This may partly be due to an increased salience of peers during adolescence. We investigated the effect of being observed by a peer on a cognitively challenging task, relational reasoning, which requires the evaluation and integration of multiple mental representations. Relational reasoning tasks engage a fronto-parietal network including the inferior parietal cortex, pre-supplementary motor area, dorsolateral and rostrolateral prefrontal cortices. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), peer audience effects on activation in this fronto-parietal network were compared in a group of 19 female mid-adolescents (aged 14–16 years) and 14 female adults (aged 23–28 years). Adolescent and adult relational reasoning accuracy was influenced by a peer audience as a function of task difficulty: the presence of a peer audience led to decreased accuracy in the complex, relational integration condition in both groups of participants. The fMRI results demonstrated that a peer audience differentially modulated activation in regions of the fronto-parietal network in adolescents and adults. Activation was increased in adolescents in the presence of a peer audience, while this was not the case in adults.

Download activity - last month

Export as JSONCSVXML

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as JSONCSVXML

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as XMLCSVJSON

Archive Staff Only

View Item