Stress-exposed adolescents show impaired cognitive flexibility in reversal learning¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associationalr2·q3
Currency · newest study 2018 · checked against its sources 2026-10-17 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q3 i? Stress-exposed adolescents had greater difficulty updating learned contingencies when contingencies reversed, improving less over time than controls. → Harms Madeline B. 2018
Evidence¶
Harms Madeline B. 2018¶
Harms Madeline B., Shannon-Bowen Katherine E., Hanson Jamie L., Pollak Seth D. (2018). Instrumental Learning and Cognitive Flexibility Processes are Impaired in Children Exposed to Early Life Stress. Developmental Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12596
q3 · i? · associational · r2
Reversal-condition ANOVA in 26 early-stress and 21 control adolescents (switch trials only) showed a main effect of group, F(1,45) = 4.98, p = .03, and a group × time interaction: "adolescents with early stress exposure did not improve their accuracy over time to the same extent as controls".
"A group × time interaction, F(1,45) = 5.45, p < .03, indicated that adolescents with early stress exposure did not improve their accuracy over time to the same extent as controls"
Discussion¶
Learner Variables¶
- Affect Regulation — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
- Executive Function — outcome: instruction changes it
Related Claims¶
- ACC activation to reward during reversal is positively associated with reversal learning performance in stress-exposed adolescents — related
- Stress-exposed adolescents show abnormal neural activation in learning- and attention-related regions — related
- Lifetime stress severity correlates with poorer learning performance and reduced putamen/ACC activation — related
- Group differences in learning are more pronounced during reversal than acquisition — related
- Stress-exposed adolescents fail to follow the optimal exploratory strategy of initial indiscriminate responding — related
- Stress-exposed adolescents learn reward-punishment associations more slowly than controls during acquisition — related
- Adolescents and adults perform equally well on the probabilistic reversal learning task overall — related
- Acute psychosocial stress differentially affects cognitive flexibility by sex (significant Sex × Condition interaction on perseverative errors) — related
- Children exposed to early adversity are at increased risk for a broad range of developmental difficulties affecting both cognitive and emotional adjustment — a broader claim this one bears on
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
early-stress-impaired-reversal-flexibility |
title |
Stress-exposed adolescents show impaired cognitive flexibility in reversal learning |
description |
Stress-exposed adolescents show impaired cognitive flexibility in reversal learning |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2018 |
source_checked |
2026-10-17 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-17 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — harms-madeline-b-2018 |
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