Executive functioning Flashcards
What is an executive function?
A family of neurocognitive processes involved in the monitoring and regulation of goal-directed behaviour.
What are the three key EF abilities?
- Inhibition.
- Shifting.
- Working memory.
When are EF’s active?
When you are doing something new or effortful.
What is the task impurity problem?
The difficulty of knowing how much a person’s performance on an EF task is due to their EF ability or the specific task processes.
What is delay discounting?
The cognitive process allowing individuals to compare values between immediate and delayed rewards.
What are the effects of delay discounting?
- Argued to be related to lower IQ, risky health behaviours and addictive behaviours.
- Adolescents show more aversion to delays than adults.
Describe inhibition (4).
- Suggested to be fragmented with multiple components.
- Attentional inhibition stops unwanted information from outside.
- Cognitive inhibition stops unwanted information from inside.
- Tasks for inhibitory strength measure your ability to suppress a brief prepotent response.
Describe cognitive shifting (2).
- Involves inhibiting old/current perspectives and using working memory to hold new ones in mind.
- Develops later than other EF components and builds on the others.
Describe working memory (3).
- Supports, and is supported by, cognitive inhibition.
- Allows you to remember what to inhibit.
True or false, executive functioning shows cultural variation.
True.
What age do children start and end developing consistent inhibitory control?
Starts around 6 to 9 months and finishes about age 5.
What two tasks/measures test inhibitory control?
- Freeze frame task.
- ECITT.
What three factors can changes in EF performance be accounted to?
- New strategy use.
- Schooling.
- Maturation of key brain areas.
