Content uploaded by Adele Diamond
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Adele Diamond
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
Executive Functions
Abstract and Figures
Executive functions (EFs) make possible mentally playing with ideas; taking the time to think before acting; meeting novel, unanticipated challenges; resisting temptations; and staying focused. Core EFs are inhibition [response inhibition (self-control-resisting temptations and resisting acting impulsively) and interference control (selective attention and cognitive inhibition)], working memory, and cognitive flexibility (including creatively thinking "outside the box," seeing anything from different perspectives, and quickly and flexibly adapting to changed circumstances). The developmental progression and representative measures of each are discussed. Controversies are addressed (e.g., the relation between EFs and fluid intelligence, self-regulation, executive attention, and effortful control, and the relation between working memory and inhibition and attention). The importance of social, emotional, and physical health for cognitive health is discussed because stress, lack of sleep, loneliness, or lack of exercise impairs EFs. That EFs are trainable and can be improved with practice is addressed, including diverse methods tried thus far. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology Volume 64 is November 30, 2012. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/catalog/pubdates.aspx for revised estimates.
Figures - uploaded by Adele Diamond
Author content
All figure content in this area was uploaded by Adele Diamond
Content may be subject to copyright.
Background
Children born very preterm (VPT; <32 weeks) are at increased risk of executive functioning (EF) difficulties. But less is known about the nature and extent of these executive difficulties during late adolescence, particularly across multiple EF domains and in response to varying degrees of executive demand.
Methods
Using data from a prospective longitudinal study, this paper describes the EF profiles of 92 VPT and 68 full-term (FT) adolescents at age 17 years. Relations between gestational age (GA) and later EF performance, in addition to neonatal predictors, were examined.
Results
VPT-born adolescents performed less well than FT adolescents across the domains of working memory, planning, and cognitive flexibility, with the largest differences observed for those born <28 weeks GA (effect sizes −0.6 to −1.0 SD), and when task demands were high. The effects of GA on EF outcome were fully mediated by neonatal medical complexity ( b = 0.169, t = −1.73) and term equivalent white matter abnormalities ( b = 0.107, t = −3.33).
Conclusion
Findings support the need for long-term cognitive support for individuals born very preterm, particularly those exposed to high levels of medical and neurological risk, with these factors largely explaining associations between GA and EF outcome.
Background: This study investigates the cognitive and linguistic advantages of bilingualism in early childhood education, focusing on language proficiency and executive function (EF) in bilingual and monolingual children. Prior research has suggested the potential benefits of bilingualism in cognitive flexibility, language development, and social skills, which are critical for educational success. Method: The study assessed the language skills and cognitive flexibility of 100 preschool-age children using standardized assessments, including the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) for language skills and the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) for cognitive flexibility. The children were divided into bilingual and monolingual groups to compare performance on these assessments. Result: Bilingual children demonstrated higher scores in native language proficiency (M = 95.6) and executive function (M = 89.2%) than monolingual children, indicating superior language and cognitive flexibility. These findings suggest that bilingualism enhances flexibility, consciousness, problem-solving, social skills, and emotional regulation in young children. Conclusion: The results support the inclusion of bilingual education in early childhood programs to foster language development and cognitive skills in young children. However, the study’s limitations, including a narrow sample and reliance on standardized assessments, highlight the need for further research across diverse populations to explore the long-term effects of bilingualism. The cognitive, language, and social advantages observed are likely beneficial for future academic success and life skills.
In the field of educational robotics (ER), researchers worldwide have dedicated substantial efforts to uncover its educational potential. Despite extensive research and training initiatives, a noticeable gap persists between these academic endeavors and the practical integration of ER into school settings. This study addresses this disparity by examining students' executive functioning, evaluated through a tablet-based assessment battery and teacher reports, along with their perceptions following participation in a workshop with a robot. Utilizing a quasi-experimental research design spanning two distinct phases—pre-intervention and post-intervention—we collaboratively designed and conducted a 12-h workshop with two classes from a regular primary school in Locarno, in consultation with their teachers. Our results shed light on the nuanced impact of ER interventions on students' executive functions, offering valuable insights for bridging the gap between research and practical implementation of ER in schools.
Executive function (EF) is improved following a single bout of exercise and impaired when an individual experiences mental fatigue (MF). These performance outcomes have been linked to a bi-directional change in cerebral blood flow (CBF). Here, we sought to determine whether MF-induced by a sustained vigilance task (i.e., psychomotor vigilance task: PVT) is mitigated when preceded by a single bout of exercise. Participants completed 20-min single bouts of active exercise (cycle ergometry involving volitional muscle activation), passive exercise (cycle ergometry involving a mechanical flywheel) and a non-exercise control intervention. EF was assessed pre- and post-intervention via the antisaccade task. Following each intervention, a 20-min PVT was completed to induce and assess MF, and transcranial Doppler ultrasound of middle cerebral artery velocity (MCAv) was used to estimate intervention- and PVT-based changes in CBF. Active and passive exercise provided a post-intervention reduction in antisaccade reaction times; that is, exercise benefitted EF. Notably, however, frequentist and Bayesian statistics indicated the EF benefit did not mitigate MF during the PVT. As well, although exercise (active and passive) and the PVT respectively increased and decreased CBF, these changes were not correlated with behavioral measures of EF or MF. Accordingly, a postexercise EF benefit does not mitigate MF during a sustained vigilance task and a bi-directional change in CBF does not serve as a primary mechanism associated with EF and MF changes. Such results provide a framework for future work to explore how different exercise types, intensities and durations may impact MF.
Successful transition to independent adulthood requires intact executive and adaptive function. These neurocognitive domains are frequently impaired in inherited metabolic disorders (IMD), despite optimal management. For many IMDs, the impact of executive and adaptive dysfunction on long‐term outcomes remains undefined. Standardized assessments linking neurocognitive status with functional outcomes are needed to improve prognostication and tailor support for affected emerging adults. Maple syrup urine disease (MSUD), a relatively prevalent IMD, is primarily diagnosed in the first week of life through newborn screening. Despite early intervention, executive and adaptive dysfunction persist. We designed a remote, interactive battery of neurocognitive and functional assessments for adults (≥21 years) with MSUD to correlate neurocognition and long‐term outcomes. Participants were selectively recruited for racial, ethnic, socio‐economic, and geographic diversity. Assessments completed by 28 adults with MSUD (82% diagnosed after symptom onset, 25% from minority communities) show a wide range in educational attainment, employment, and residence. Executive and adaptive function were significantly impaired in adults with MSUD compared to controls. Executive and adaptive deficits correlated negatively with educational attainment, employment, and obtaining skills needed for adult‐oriented healthcare or independent living. Clinical history did not predict functional outcomes, but neurocognitive assessments suggest the benefits of pre‐symptomatic diagnosis. Independent adulthood is attainable for individuals with MSUD. Routine assessment of neurocognition and interventions targeting executive and adaptive function may improve long‐term functional outcomes in IMD.
Introdução: Este estudo explora o uso de jogos de tabuleiro contemporâneos para estimular funções executivas (FE) — habilidades cognitivas essenciais para o planejamento, decisão e controle comportamental — em crianças do ensino fundamental. Objetivo: Analisar o impacto de um programa de Jogos de Tabuleiro Contemporâneos no desenvolvimento das FE em crianças. Metodologia: Participaram 8 crianças, 4 meninos e 4 meninas, entre 7 e 10 anos, de uma escola pública em São Paulo. Foram utilizados testes como o Teste de Trilhas, Torre de Londres, Teste de Atenção por Cancelamento (TAC) e Teste Stroop antes e após a intervenção. Também foram desenvolvidos quadros de análise para registrar comportamentos durante os jogos. Resultados: A maioria dos participantes apresentou melhorias nos testes, com aumento nos acertos (Torre de Londres), redução de erros (Stroop), e avanços na flexibilidade cognitiva e memória operacional (TAC). Observou-se também evolução nos comportamentos durante os jogos, embora as crianças mais novas (7 anos) tenham demonstrado mais dificuldades. Conclusão: Jogos de tabuleiro contemporâneos mostraram-se eficazes no estímulo das FE, indicando seu potencial como ferramenta educativa. A ampliação do tempo de intervenção e do número de participantes pode fortalecer futuras análises.
Under high-pressure situations, complex cognition and behavior frequently exhibit performance decrements, commonly known as choking under pressure. Complex cognition and behavior are primarily composed of three core components: behavior execution, inhibition, and switching. However, choking does not stem from decreases in all behavior components but primarily from failures in inhibition and switching. This study aims to further investigate whether performance pressure reduces performance in inhibition and switching and whether cue priming can alleviate choking on these two behaviors. Participants were assigned at random to the pressure group or the control group. Subsequently, they completed a modified version of the behavior variation task, during which they were instructed to make executive, inhibitory, or switching responses to forthcoming stimuli based on prior cues. The previous cues were categorized into three types: positive cues correctly indicating subsequent target behavior, negative cues incorrectly indicating subsequent behavior, and no cues. Results showed that performance pressure did not decrease performance in behavior execution, but had a negative impact on inhibition and switching. Importantly, positive cues were found to mitigate performance decrements in inhibition and switching, while negative cues or no cues did not affect choking in either behavior. Our results offer support for the distraction theory. These findings offer new perspectives on understanding the causes of choking and developing successful intervention approaches.
The development of verbal and spatial working memory was investigated with an interference paradigm. Memory spans were obtained from 3 groups (8-, 10-, and 19-yr olds) under 6 different conditions: Two primary memory tasks (1 verbal, 1 spatial) were administered in isolation and in conjunction with 2 versions of a secondary task. The primary tasks required recalling a series of visually presented digits and recalling the locations of Xs in a series of visually presented grids. The secondary tasks required reporting the color of the stimuli as they were presented using either a verbal or a spatial response. Analyses revealed that all age groups showed domain-specific interference (i.e., interference by a secondary task from the same domain as the primary task), but only the 8-yr-olds also showed nonspecific interference (i.e., interference by a secondary task from a domain different than the primary memory task), suggesting that at least some executive functions do not reach adult levels of efficiency until approximately age 10.
Many of the symptoms that are particularly difficult to treat are associated with damage to the frontal lobes. There are a very large number of symptoms which are collectively referred to as 'dysexecutive symptoms'. This chapter describes some of the latest findings about the functional anatomy of the frontal lobes, the main clusters of frontal lobe symptoms, how they relate together, and their relative importance. It explains the main theories of how the frontal lobe executive system works and how they relate to the symptoms seen day to day. It also offers some predictions about therapeutic methods that might be worth pursuing based on these theories. Many of the symptoms that are particularly difficult to treat are associated with damage to the frontal lobes. There are a very large number of symptoms which are collectively referred to as 'dysexecutive symptoms'. These are not only problematic in themselves, but can also affect a patient's ability to benefit from therapy aimed at ameliorating other forms of deficit (e.g. physical therapy), and are often associated with a generally poor response to treatment (Alderman 1991). Considerable treatment advances have been made in this area in the last few years. However, in order to develop new methods we need to understand the causes of the particular symptoms. This chapter has four aims: (1) To describe some of the latest findings about the functional anatomy of the frontal lobes; (2) to describe the main clusters of frontal lobe symptoms, how they relate together, and their relative importance; (3) to explain the main theories of how the frontal lobe executive system works and how they relate to the symptoms you can expect to see day to day, and (4) to give some 'blue-sky' predictions about which therapeutic methods might be worth pursuing based on these theories.
This study examines the hypothesis that patients with frontal lobe lesions are impaired on tests of letter but not category fluency. This hypothesis was proposed by Moscovitch (1994), based on a series of cognitive studies with young. normal participants. A group of patients with lateral prefrontal lesions and age-matched controls were tested on 2 tests of verbal fluency, the FAS task and a category fluency task that used semantic categories as cues (e.g., animals). Patients with frontal lobe lesions generated fewer items than controls on both letter and category fluency. This effect did not interact with the type of fluency test, suggesting that the frontal lobes are more generally involved in verbal fluency. Moreover, this pattern of findings, along with previous results of impaired free recall and remote retrieval in this patient group, suggests that patients with frontal lobe lesions do not efficiently organize and develop retrieval strategies.
A parametric working memory network stores the information of an analog stimulus in the form of persistent neural activity that is monotonically tuned to the stimulus. The family of persistent firing patterns with a continuous range of firing rates must all be realizable under exactly the same external conditions (during the delay when the transient stimulus is withdrawn). How this can be accomplished by neural mechanisms remains an unresolved question. Here we present a recurrent cortical network model of irregularly spiking neurons that was designed to simulate a somatosensory working memory experiment with behaving monkeys. Our model reproduces the observed positively and negatively monotonic persistent activity, and heterogeneous tuning curves of memory activity. We show that fine-tuning mathematically corresponds to a precise alignment of cusps in the bifurcation diagram of the network. Moreover, we show that the fine-tuned network can integrate stimulus inputs over several seconds. Assuming that such time integration occurs in neural populations downstream from a tonically persistent neural population, our model is able to account for the slow ramping-up and ramping-down behaviors of neurons observed in prefrontal cortex.
This chapter is about the effects of successively shifting between conflicting stimulus-response (S-R) mappings in speeded selective response tasks. Even after some time to prepare for a shift of task, there can still be a large reaction time (RT) cost on the first trial of the shifted task, generally referred to as a "residual switch cost." In five experiments, subjects performed Stroop color naming (in response to incongruent combinations of color and a distractor color word) and word reading. The word-reading task was in response to both "Stroop" and "neutral" word stimuli. Our results show that at least a large component of the so-called switch costs results from a form of negative priming - or negative transfer of learning - arising from earlier performance of the competing selection task (Stroop color naming), interfering with the execution of the current task (word reading). The competing task need not have been performed on the immediately preceding trial to generate these effects. Hence these interference effects cannot be due to a time-consuming "switch of set" on the current trial. The data also point to the special status of the first trial, in any run of speeded RT trials, even without any shift of task. In our experiments, the first trial of each block of speeded-response trials was consistently slower (and more accurate) than later trials. (We refer to this as the "restart" effect.) Following the Stroop color-naming task, however, word-reading RT was hugely increased, not only on the first trial of the next word-reading block (i.e., the "switch" trial), but also on the first trial of later (pure task) blocks of word reading without any switch of task. Some of the negative priming - or negative transfer - from the Stroop color-naming task to subsequent word reading turns out to be stimulus specific, depending on the occurrence of the same individual stimulus items (as distractors, in one task; as target stimuli in the other), rather than on competing, abstract "task sets." The results are interpreted in terms of a process of stimulus-response (S-R) binding in selection-for-action. Later S-R events can trigger retrieval of previously formed (conflicting or consistent) S-R bindings, resulting in positive or negative priming.
The authors summarize developments in the concept of working memory as a multicomponent system, beginning by contrasting this approach with alternative uses of the term working memory. According to a 3-component model, working memory comprises a phonological loop for manipulating and storing speech-based information and a visuospatial sketchpad that performs a similar function for visual and spatial information. Both are supervised by a central executive, which functions as an attentional control system. A simple trace-decay model of the phonological loop provides a coherent account of the effects of word length, phonemic similarity, irrelevant speech, and articulatory suppression in verbal short-term memory tasks. This model of the loop has also proved useful in the analysis of neuropsychological, developmental and, cross-cultural data. The notion of the sketchpad is supported by selective interference with imagery in normal adults and by specific neuropsychological impairment. Analysis of the central executive is illustrated by work on deficits in the ability to coordinate subproccesses in Alzheimer's disease.
This chapter summarizes major empirical generalizations about aging and memory and then discusses episodic memory (or deliberate, intentional memory for particular events) as well as research on mechanisms of retrieval and on memory errors (source and false memories). Finally, the chapter considers non-cognitive (social, biological) factors that have important moderating effects on age differences in memory. Although it is far from certain that a common underlying factor accounts for the basic developmental patterns that have been found in studies examining age differences in recollection and familiarity, source memory, and memory errors, there seems to be a common empirical thread. The available evidence suggests that we may have seriously underestimated the memory abilities of older adults. © 2006 by Ellen Bialystok, Fergus I.M. Craik. All rights reserved.