Development of inhibitory control across the life span

The stop-signal procedure was used to examine the development of inhibitory control. A group of 275 participants, 6 to 81 years of age, performed a vi sual choice reaction time (go) task and attempted to inhibit their response s to the go task when they heard a stop signal. Reaction times to the stop and go signals were used to assess performance in inhibition and response e xecution, respectively. Results indicated the speed of stopping becomes fas ter with increasing age throughout childhood, with limited evidence of slow ing across adulthood. By contrast, strong evidence was obtained for age-rel ated speeding of go-signal reaction time throughout childhood, followed by marked slowing throughout adulthood. Hierarchical regression confirmed that the age-related change in inhibitory control could not be explained by gen eral speeding or slowing of responses. Findings are discussed in regard to the contrast between the development of inhibition and response execution a nd the utility of the stop-signal procedure.