Executive control

Question 1

Harlow 1848

Answer 1

Phineas gage - frontal lobe damage implicated in high level control of context-dependent actions and disposition

Question 2

Milner & Petrides 1984

Answer 2

individuals with frontal resections make perseveration errors in the WCST
they have problems with recency judgements, planning and self-generated action
linked to organising memories flexibly

Question 3

Eslinger & Damasion 1985

Answer 3

ventromedial prefrontal damage patients show preserved cognitive abilities in the lab but have impaired knowledge of appropriate social conduct in real life

Question 4

Lhermitte et al., 1986

Answer 4

imitation and utilisation behaviour is uncontrolled in patients with frontal lobe lesions resulting in reflexive action bound to the primary response elicited by a stimulus to high accuracy

Question 5

(Mesulam, 1986, 2002)

Answer 5

difficult to characterise a unitary frontal lobe syndrome as symptoms associated with lesions are vast and varied and depend on the nature of the lesion and individual

Question 6

experimental tasks used to study executive functions

Answer 6

a. Wisconsin Card-Sorting Task (Grent & Berg, 1948)
b. Verbal fluency (FAS) (Benton & Hamsher 1976)
c. Tower of London Task (Shallice, 1982)
d. Multiple-Errand Task (Burgess & Shallice, 1991)
e. Stroop Colour-naming Task (Stroop, 1935)
f. Task switching (Jersild 1927; Rogers and Monsell, 1995)
g. Flanker Task (Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974)
h. Stop-signal task (Logan & Cowan, 1984)

Question 7

psychological theories of executive control funcitons

Answer 7

Supervisory Attention System (Norman & Shallice, 1980)

Cognitive-neural Model (Miller & Cohen, 2001)

Contemporary Models (Braem et al., 2019)

Question 8

Norman & Shallice 1980

Answer 8

supervisory attention system
automatic
contention scheduling
deliberate conscious control

Question 9

miller & cohen 2001

Answer 9

cognitive neural model
temporary context-based networks of association configured to guide behaviour
top-down biasing signals between sensory input and behavioural output

Question 10

Braem et al 2019

Answer 10

contemporary learning perspective models

mutual influences between control functions and simpler learning related functions

Question 11

Neuropsychological studies

Answer 11

The case of Phineas Gage (Harlow, 1848, 1868): After his freak accident, the
mild-tempered railway worker had preserved perception, memory, language; but
his temperament and personality changed.
b. Brenda Milner (1963 onward) showed that individuals with frontal resections
made perseveration errors in the WCST, had problems with recency
judgements, planning, and self-generated action (Milner and Petrides, 1984).
c. Individuals with ventromedial prefrontal damage have preserved cognitive
abilities in the lab but lead disastrous lives in the real world (Eslinger and
Damasio, 1985).
d. Imitation and utilisation behaviour (Lhermitte et al., 1986): individuals with frontal
lesions become bound to the physical and social environment.
e. Symptoms after frontal lesions can be highly variable and may depend on
factors related to location and time course of lesion as well as the individual’s
age and personality at the time of the lesion (Mesulam, 1986; 2002).

Question 12

Duncan 2010

Answer 12

multiple-demand system
common multiple-demand pattern of PFC and parietal areas in cognitive demands and fluid intelligence
fMRI and AI

Question 13

Badre 2008

Answer 13

hierarchical organisation

rostro-caudal axis of control functions becoming incresingly abstract and complex in the PF C

Question 14

Rushworth 2015

Answer 14

relevant functional specialisation
Characterises the contributions of functionally specialised areas and their associated networks to different aspects of cognitive control