Executive Function Studies

Question 1

Penfield 1937

Answer 1

Electrical stimulation revealed S1 and M1

Question 2

Phineas Gage

Answer 2

Railway spike through frontal lobe - change in personality, unreliable

Question 3

Goldman-Rakic and Fuster

Answer 3

Proposed PFC was responsible for information not in the immediate environment - “mental sketch-pad”. Representations guide behaviour

Question 4

Shimamaura 2000

Answer 4

Dynamic Filtering Theory: filtering mechanism that supports goal-directed activations and inhibits irrelevant

Question 5

Miller and Cohen 2001

Answer 5

Integrative theory of PFC function: representations act as Attentional templates, providing top-down bias

Question 6

Guitton et al. 1985

Answer 6

Anti-saccadic performance - more errors with frontal lobe lesions

Question 7

Knight and Grabowecky 1995

Answer 7

Increase ERP response in frontal lobe with lesion when ignoring auditory clicks

Question 8

Wisconsin Card Sorting Task

Answer 8

Sorting task where participant is unaware of the rule, but it keeps changing - perseveration

Question 9

Fuster 1997

Answer 9

Perception-Action cycle: directly related to brain structure, progressively posterior regions of LFC responsible for integrating more concrete info

Question 10

Badre 2008

Answer 10

Rostro-caudal axis of PFC supports control hierarchy -> different lesions, different deficits

Question 11

Botvinick and Plaut 2004

Answer 11

Hierarchy can also be explained by single layer neural network

Question 12

Executive function

Answer 12

Management of cognitive processes, WM, reasoning, planning, and execution