Core Executive Functions Flashcards
Defining Executive Function
Set of cognitive processes that guide goal-directed behavior, high level (it’s the CEO of the company, broader than the central executive and encompasses working memory)
How is executive function top-down?
Allows us to prioritize what’s important and stick with it/keep track of it
Top-down mental processes (not habitual): COUNTER TO WHAT IS IN YOUR SECOND NATURE, makes you think things over (should you really eat that? Then choosing not to even when eating it would be your second nature)
REQUIRES neural resources and is EFFORTFUL
Executive Functions
Select context appropriate behavior: regulate your behavior according to the situation
Make and execute plans (to-do lists etc.)
Persist through task and ignore distractors
Keeping track of goals and activities
Be flexible in thought and behavior: switching strategies in the context of supporting a goal (how you study for one course vs another)
Learn associations: Pavlovian/classical conditioning, ability to be conditioned
Make informed decisions/risk assessment based on that (dangerous when not present in some with EF dysfunction)
Emotional regulation
Understand and empathize with others
ALMOST EVERYTHING WE DO REQUIRES SOME LEVEL OF EXECUTIVE FUNCTION (unless its habitual)
EF and environmental factors early in life
EF is influenced strongly by environmental factors: supportive, engaging, interacting caregiver facilitates EF development
Socioeconomic status: lower SES is linked to lower EF
Stress: acute and chronic stress impairs EF and shifting (SHIFTING: performance on shifting/switching between tasks), when highly stressed out you want to fall back into habitual patterns
Physical health factors: lack of sleep and exercise impairs executive functions
Pros and cons of cross-sectional vs longitudinal studies
Cross-sectional study: everyone doing the study at once, people who exercise more often show BETTER EXECUTIVE FUNCTION, CAN’T RULE OUT ANY BROAD SOCIETAL IMPACTS because people could be going through something in this cohort
Longitudinal: people who exercise more often oVER TIME, show better executive function, easier to rule out broad societal impacts that might be messing up the validity of your results, can see if people who
Implications of EF
Individual differences in EF is a key predictor of long-term cognitive and social developmental outcomes
Education: EF predicts math/reading competence during school
Occupation: lower EF leads to difficulty finding/keeping a job
Physical Health: lower EF associated with overeating and substance abuse
Mental Health: impaired EF is found in many disorders (ADHD, OCD AND DEPRESSION
Integrated Theory of Executive Function
“Hot Executive Functions: social cognition and emotion/regulation/decision-making
Cold Social Cognition, Cognitive Empathy/Theory of Mind
Hot Social Cognition Affective Empathy/Theory of Mind Emotion Recognition
Cold Executive Functions: planning, cognitive, flexibility, working memory, initiation, suppression, concept formation
Miyake’s Theory on Executive Function
CONTAINS THREE ELEMENTS
Inhibition: ability to inhibit default responses, SHOWN VIA stroop/stop signal tests (being able to inhibit automatic response)
Working Memory: tested via N-back test (updating working memory) and Digit span (capacity)
Cognitive Flexibility: ability to change thoughts/behaviors, ability for change (trail making: connect numbers and letters, WCST test) BOTH TESTS TAP INTO COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY
Inhibition
Ability to control one’s attention, behavior, thoughts or emotions to override a strong internal predisposition or external lure
Selectively attend on what we choose and suppress attention to other (distracting) stimuli, cocktail party
Suppress unwanted thoughts and memories
Resist temptations to engage in certain behavior and not impulsively
Stay on task to complete a task by ignoring distractions and resisting temptations to just give up
Marshmallow experiment and inhibition
Marshmallow Immediate Gratification experiment: OFTEN TESTED IN CHILDREN in context of development, seeing if they will wait to eat a marshmallow in order to get two (SHOWN TO PREDICT THEIR ACADEMIC/LIFE OUTCOMES YEARS LATER)
Longitudinal study examined 1000 children for 32 years; CHILDREN WITH LESS INHIBITORY CONTROL HAD POORER ATTENTION REGULATION, WORSE HEALTH OUTCOMES, EARN LESS, AND COMMIT MORE CRIMES LATER IN LIFE
Solutions: interventions with even small improvements in inhibitory control can have lasting improvements in health outcomes, wealth, and crime rate
Stroop Test and inhibition
Stroop Test: identify the ink color that the words are presented in,
Assess ability to inhibit prepotent response to read the color that the letter is in
Stop signal test, inhibition
“Go trial”: respond as quickly as possible when you see green circle, but in some subsets they show an immediate stop signal
Task: respond to target stimuli as quickly as possible, unless shown a stop-signal in which case withhold your response
ABILITY TO WITHHOLD AUTOMATIC RESPONSE IS INHIBITION
Tests for working memory
N-Back Task: being able to report whether current letter is the same as two letters back
VSS Working Memory Task: what/where/when task, respond if the array is the same or different as previously presented
Cognitive Flexibility
Shift between perspectives as desired
Involves perceptual shifting/viewing objects from different angles
Involves changing perspectives INTERPERSONALLY (consider your situation from your friend’s perspective)
Involves changing how we think about something (thinking outside of the box, creativity, knowing that objects have multi-purposes)
HIGHER COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY: better outcomes throughout the lifespan
Trail Making Test, Cognitive Flexibility
connect numbers and letters in ascending order
Wisconsin Card Sorting Task: sort each card in the deck (by shape, color, or number) according to a hidden rule that changes over time AND RESPOND to putting cards in the designed pile according to instructions, ASSESSES FLEXIBILITY IN SHIFTING RESPONSE STRATEGY, need to keep in mind current instructions and then update when a new rule comes into play
