Time Isn’t of the Essence
研究发现，成人强制的等待时间并不能提高3岁儿童的抑制控制能力，而任务提醒才有效，这对干预措施的设计有重要启示。
Is it easier to inhibit inappropriate behaviors if one pauses before acting? An important finding for theory and intervention is that children's inhibitory control improves if an adult imposes a delay before they can act. Such findings have suggested that the passage of time allows impulsive urges to dissipate passively. However, in prior studies with imposed delays, children were also reminded about what they should be doing, which may have aided their activation of goal-relevant information. We tested this possibility by independently manipulating delays and task reminders, and measuring 3-year-olds' abilities to inhibit opening boxes in a go/no-go box-search task. Task reminders, but not adult-imposed delays, improved children's response inhibition. However, as in prior work, children who spontaneously delayed their action longer on go trials exhibited better response inhibition on no-go trials. These results pose a challenge to the view that the passage of time plays a causal role, suggest that spontaneous delays index other processes that improve inhibitory control, and highlight the importance of goal activation in developing inhibitory control.