Adaptive cognitive control in 4 to 7-year-old children and potential effects of school-based yoga-mindfulness interventions: an exploratory study in Italy

Introduction: Recent findings showed that adaptive cognitive control (CC) can be instantiated by bottom-up mechanisms, including statistical contingency of event occurrence. However, the developmental evidence in this domain remains limited. Methods: To address this gap, our study delves into the exploration of different mechanisms underlying adaptive CC in a substantial cohort of young children (211 participants aged between 4 and 7 years). We utilized the Dynamic Temporal Prediction (DTP) task and a modified version of the Flanker task to assess the effect of context predictability on motor preparation/inhibition and interference control, respectively. Furthermore, as part of an exploratory study designed to evaluate the feasibility of a school-based program in Italy, all children underwent a re-testing session after an 8-week intervention involving yoga-mindfulness. Results: Results suggested that young children can exploit global probabilistic changes to optimize motor preparation/ inhibition while counterbalancing fatigue effects. Moreover, they successfully modulate interference control as a function of environmental contingencies, displaying more optimal conflict resolution when proactive control is engaged. Finally, we observed a post-intervention increase of the capability to implicitly adapt motor preparation/inhibition and a boosting effect on the interference control functions. Discussion: Overall, these findings confirmed that adaptive CC is already present in preschool-aged children, extending these results to include 4-years-olds. Additionally, school-based yoga-mindfulness programs are feasible and might improve children’s capability to flexibly and proactively adapt to environmental requests promoting cognitive proficiency.