Chapter 4 Executive function and cognitive control

Question 1

Unconscious Processing

Answer 1

• Information can be processed beyond our conscious awareness
  -Patient DB (blindsight)
• If everything your brain was monitoring and enacting was part of your conscious awareness, what would be the consequences?

Question 2

Examples of controlled conscious vs. automatic unconscious

Answer 2

Question 3

Aspects of controlled conscious vs. automatic unconscious

Answer 3

Question 4

Action slips

Answer 4

• Action slips
  -When trying to do something different, you end up doing what is normal or habitual.
  -An example is driving to school when you intended to go to the store.
• Routines are efficient but inflexible
• Need a mechanism by which you can monitor and control your own mental processes
  Metacognition

Question 5

What does executive control need?

Answer 5

• a means to launch desired actions and override
  unwanted actions.
• a means to represent its goals and subgoals.
• to evaluate the situation.
  -What information is coming in?
  -How can the bits of information be integrated?
  -Is there any conflict among the arriving information, or conflict
  between the information and the current goals?
• to evaluate how smoothly the action/process is
  proceeding.

Question 6

How does executive control work?

Answer 6

• The control system must:
  -monitor what actions it should be doing (focus on lecture)
  -suppress actions that it shouldn’t be doing
  (don’t drink neighbor’s coffee)
  -represent goals at various levels of abstraction
  (get caffeine -> pick up cup -> tense muscle)
  -monitor context (phone rings)
  -update system consistently (cup too hot)
• Anterior cingulate cortex

Question 7

What tasks recruit executive control

Answer 7

• goal setting / organizing (plan dinner party)
• problem solving (code a fibonacci generator)
• overcoming habitual responses (stroop task)
  task switching (emails and math problems)
• also stroop task!
• multitasking (talking and driving)

Question 8

Anterior Cingulate

Answer 8

Question 9

Executive Function Disorders

Answer 9

• The prefrontal cortex is critical to cognitive control
  -damage from healthy aging, neurodegenerative disease, or injury can result in people:
  -Acting inflexibly, having planning difficulty, becoming easily distracted.
• The prefrontal cortex is particularly important to
  executive control.
  -Deficit in maintaining desired goal