The present study investigated the inhibition mechanisms of gifted children, which is one of the main executive functions in human cognitive system. The inhibition process was subdivided into cognitive and emotion aspects in order to examine the inter...
The present study investigated the inhibition mechanisms of gifted children, which is one of the main executive functions in human cognitive system. The inhibition process was subdivided into cognitive and emotion aspects in order to examine the interplay between these two aspects with respect to inhibition processing. In Experiment 1, word-color Stroop task was used to study the cognitive inhibition process of 100 gifted children(Gender: 62 males, 38 females; Academic grade: 46 Elementary school students, 54 Secondary school students). In addition, emotional Stroop task was utilized in Experiment 2 to examine the effect of emotional component during cognitive inhibition process. Results revealed a significant cognitive cost (i.e., word-color Stroop effect) when participants had to withhold automatic response during cognitive inhibition task in Experiment 1. Such cognitive cost was reduced as the chronological age of the participants increased, with no difference in gender. The results in Experiment 2 showed no significant emotional inhibition cost (i.e., emotional Stroop effect) during cognitive inhibition task, and there was no effect of gender nor age. This suggests that the emotional component conveyed in words did not lead to cognitive bias effects. This study proposes that the cognitive and emotional inhibition processes are seemingly independent mechanisms that engage in complex interactions during inhibition processing of behavioral response.