ABSTRACT
Executive functions, which encompass the range of abilities that allow us to control our thoughts and actions in order to obtain future goals, emerge over the course of early child development and improve gradually during adolescence (Huizinga, Dolan, & van der Molen, 2006; Zelazo, 2004). An important aspect of executive functions is our ability to monitor and regulate the outcomes of our actions, referred to as performance monitoring. Performance monitoring is important for many kinds of adaptive behavior; for example, it is involved in exible rule shifting (Barcelo & Knight, 2002), inferring probabilities (Ernst & Paulus, 2005), and making future-oriented choices (Bechara, Tranel, & Damasio, 2000). These abilities are essential for rapid changes in behavior to accommodate to environmental changes.
