Developmental Trajectories of Magnitude Processing and Interference Control: An fMRI Study

Neurodevelopmental changes regarding interference and magnitude processing were assessed in 3 age groups (children, n = 10; young adults, n = 11; elderly participants, n = 9) by using an functional magnetic resonance imaging version of the numerical Stroop task. Behaviorally, comparable distance and size congruity effects were found in all 3 age groups. Distance effects were most pronounced in the more difficult numerical task, whereas size congruity effects were comparable across tasks. In response to interference, an age-linear trend in the pattern of activation in left and right prefrontal and left middle temporal regions of the brain was observed. This implicates that with increasing age interference control requires increasing effort (possible explanations for children's relatively lower interference effects are provided). In contrast, the distance effect produced a negative linear trend in right prefrontal, supplementary motor area, and intraparietal cortex. This suggests that relative to old adults, children and young adults had to recruit a larger network upon processing magnitude. The latter findings are even more remarkable considering that the behavioral effects were similar across groups. In summary, the developmental trajectories of interference control and magnitude processing differ, although these cognitive functions activate partially overlapping brain regions.