Historically, developmental studies have shown a steady improvement in cognitive control capacity from infancy to adulthood 33. This observation is supported by a wealth of behavioral evidence from experimental paradigms in controlled laboratory settings including paradigms such as the Go-NoGo task, Simon task, and task-switching paradigms that require participants to override a prepotent response in order to achieve a correct one 32, 34. However, when it is advantageous to suppress a response to incentive-related cues, cognitive control suffers 20. This reduced control is especially evident during the period of adolescence, when suboptimal choices in sexual and drug related behaviors peak 3, 11, 12, 14. These observations imply that developmental trajectories in cognitive control are complex and can be modulated by emotionally charged or reinforcing contexts (e.g., social and sexual interactions), in which cognitive control demands interact with motivational drives or processes.
