Executive Functioning and Intelligence Flashcards
Executive Functions and its assessment
What is Executive Function? (EF)
it allows you to attend to this lecture for example, or to drive a car or to do other daily activities. It is defined as a variety of higher-order mental processes and behaviours, also labelled as control of cognition or cognitive control
Its about,
– “Inhibiting actions” - about actions, the capacity to obstruct automatic or dominant responses when they are not appropriate for the context at hand. It includes the ability to suppress the influence of interfering information.
–“Enhancing working memory” about metacognition (own functioning); “Updating Working Memory” is a screening and coding system that reviews information based on its circumstantial significance, constantly eliminating extraneous information and replacing it with more relevant information. It also represents our cognitive capacity for simultaneous processing of multiple tasks
–“Being cognitively flexible” about actions
EF better predictor school readiness than IQ (Blair & Razza, 2007)
6 domains of EF
•Impulse control – (not to do the things you would like to do - pre-potent responses) Marshmallow Experiment Mischel & Ebbesen 1960
•Emotional control –toddler tantrum (know what they want but they are unable to control their emotions)
•Self monitoring/awareness – (aware of your own actions) e.g. inner speech in Vygotsky’s content; social development
•Task initiation - if there’s a task to do and you know from yourself that its not always something you get done (e.g. you should start revising for exam but cant get yourself to do it)
•Planning/prioritising - what are your goals? how do you prioritise your time will be an indicator of your success
•Working memory –keeping goal to finish the task after interruption (chef - have to keep everything in working memory to know what you have to do next)
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Which brain area do you think is the most important one for executive functioning?
It the frontal lobe and its also the area that is developing through our childhood.
Executive function in the brain:
Predominantly
•Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex–important for working memory, planning, inhibition,
•Anterior Cingulate Cortex–responsible for conflict monitoring (Carter et al., 1998)
If there are any injuriesto these brain areas, you will get malfunctioning in your executive functions.
And a several other areas (DLPFC & ACC heavily interconnected)
How does EF develop?
Prefrontal cortex is responsible for executive functioning and this area develops rather late in comparison to other cortex cortices. its one of the first areas that declines early in aging.
How do we assess EF? (Methods)
we can look at differing levels such as genetics, structural and functional imaging, cognitive tests, and observations. we move from the micro to the macro level or the other way around.
Cognitive Tests:
•Inhibition - measures an individual’s ability to override their natural, habitual, or dominant behavioral response to a stimulus in order to implement more adaptive goal-oriented behaviors.
•Shifting (task set) - switching from two different tasks and higher and lower levels of mental processing. It enables us to adapt dynamically to changing task demands and contexts
•Planning - measures your brain’s ability to plan ahead.
•Updating (Working Memory)
•Sustained Attention
the most common division of EF includes three components: inhibition, updating working memory, and shifting. These play an important role in learning and memory
Cognitive tests: Inhibition
being bad at these tasks would reflect that there is a problem with executive functioning,
•Ability to inhibit reflects EF functioning
•Many inhibition tasks
–Stroop task; The Stroop phenomenon demonstrates that it is difficult to name the ink color of a color word if there is a mismatch between ink color and word. For example, the word GREEN printed in red ink. requires selective attention and inhibition control.
–Flanker task; requires (spatial) selective attention and executive control. In this task, irrelevant stimuli have to be inhibited in order to respond to a relevant target stimulus. a task in which stimuli are assigned one of two responses and the participant is required to respond to the target stimulus when this is flanked by other stimuli. The stimuli are presented at a known location (usually at fixation), and the flanking stimuli are associated with a response that is either the same as or different from that assigned to the target. Reaction time is slower if the stimuli flanking the target are assigned the alternative response than if they are assigned the same response as the target.
–Wisconsin card sorting task; a test that requires participants to deduce from feedback (right vs. wrong) how to sort a series of cards depicting different geometric shapes in various colors and quantities. Once the participant has identified the underlying sorting principle (e.g., by color) and correctly sorts 10 consecutive cards, the principle is changed without notification. Although the task involves many aspects of brain function, it is primarily considered a test of executive functions, particularly abstract reasoning and cognitive flexibility in response to external changes.
These tasks are used to screen for EF deficits
–Impulsivity: cannot stop when asked to stop
–Lack of goal directed behaviour: Daydreaming, off-topic
Inhibition: example of Flanker task
•Eriksson & Eriksson (1974)
have to respond to the central arrows marked with the red circle. you have to say whether its pointing left or right or you have to attend to a stimulus on the side it is pointing to. the key rule is the role of the flankers (arrows around it), they indicate which direction you should look for. in congruent trials the flankers look in the same direction as the central arrow, but in the incongruent trials they look in the opposing direction (they lure you into a response you don’t want to give in the incongruence trials). you have to ignore the flankers because they are irrelevant information, but they still get processed and they slow you down in incongruent trials.
Inhibition: Stroop Task
in one condition you read the words that are written in different colours for example green is written in blue, in the other condition you name the colours (so you would have to say blue because of the colour but it has written green). naming the colours tend to be harder and so you get an interference effect which shows that your natural inclination is to read the words. but you have to inhibit this natural inclination and name the colours.
So How Do We Test This In Kids?
Color-Object Stroop - Prevor & Diamond (2005),
pre-school age children can not read yet but you want to do this task with them too. they must name the colours but ignore the object, the congruent trial would be the orange carrot, whereas the incongruent trial has the green carrot. you have additionally the neutrally coloured objects like blue and yellow that don’t have a label at all, and you have to name the colour. children are much faster to name the colour of abstract shapes. even though children are being asked to identify the colour in all of these 4 conditions, you can see how they are being much slower in congruent coloured objects.
The speed is seen to increase with age, however, as children get older they are faster in naming the colour in the congruent condition than the incongruent condition.
this means there is an interference effect in the older children, which only surfaces after 3 and a half yrs old. this means the identity of the object becomes more important as the children grow older.
Explanation of the data
•Lack of inhibitory control to name objects
•Gradual increase from colour to object (identity) preference 3-9 years (e.g., Colby & Robertson, 1942)
•Maturation of executive function compensates object preference in adulthood (LaHeij et al. 2009)
•The same principles of automatic activation and suppression underlie child and adult data (Ambrosi et al, 2019)
Wisconsin card sorting task - Grant and Berg (1948):
Once correct sorting rule (by colour, number or shape) is performed 10 X in a row - change of sorting rule
•Originally test of frontal lobe function
•Evidence from (monkey) lesion studies
•But challenged by findings that temporal and parietal lesions also lead to typical WCST errors (perseveration)
WCST meta analysis - Buchsbaum et al. (2005):
different tasks were used to see which brain areas are involved in a task. the colours symbolise where the task is involved in the brain. dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is active with all the tasks involved.
Development of EF:
Dimensional Change Card Sorting task (DCCS; Child version of WCST)
children receives a blue pear and red apple card, as well as a blue apple and red pear. you are supposed to sort blue pears with blue apples and in the shape game you are meant to sort pairs with pairs and apples with apples. 3yr olds have 42% success rate while 4yr olds have 92% success rate for DCCS. An explanation for this is attentional inertia - children experience difficulty disengaging from the task-set
the moment you ask children to switch the rule (from colour to objects) you see them fail (3yr olds).
If you take the same task but frame it differently (Kloo et al. 2008) like as a game, children do a lot better. for example, kids played a colour game but there is the picture missing. in this game the girl gets all the green things and in the animal game the boy gets the horses. so the question is what is missing here? it is a green horse as the boy gets the horses regardless if they are green or not. 3yr olds performance was 86% correct compared to DCCS.
Explanation for this:
•Description difficulty in standard task - children have difficulty formalizing clear task set; framing it as a game helps them (Kloo et al 2008)
Another explanation is the Cognitive Complexity and Control (CCC) theory (Zelazo et al. 2003):
“The development of executive function can be understood in terms of age-related increases in the maximum complexity of the rules children can formulate and use when solving problems.”
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Dimensional Change Card Sorting task (DCCS) is a child version of Wisconsin card sorting task [1]. In this task children are presented with coloured objects printed on cards [1]. The children are first asked to sort the cards by one rule (e.g., colour) andafter some trials they are asked to switch to another task (e.g., shape). [2] 3 year-olds predominantly fail this task, however, when the task is explained differently e.g., as a game so that children can make a clearer and easier task-set, 3 year old children are more likely to succeed. [3] Children fail this task due to difficulty disengaging from the first task –also defined as attentional inertia. [3] OR The Cognitive Complexity and Control (CCC) theory states that performance in this task is related to the maximal complexity of the rules that children can formulate. [3]
Executive Dysfunction
Remember Phineas Gage?
•Had frontal lobe damage
–Personality changed as a result (emotional control)
–Unable to manage money (planning)
–Unable to stay in a job (inhibition of impulses, working memory, emotional control)
Executive function in non-human animals?
Clever crow from inside the animal mind, BBC,
have pretty good abilities but do not have a prefrontal cortex. the crow was familiar with all the tasks and knew how to get the food but cannot say whether there was any planning involved from the start. very good tool users, but no strong evidence that they are planning.
Behavioural assessment of Executive (dys)function:
•use the BRIEF (Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function, Gioia et al.)
Observer (parent, teacher) to give ratings on
–Inhibition
–Ability to shift (tasks, attention etc,)
–Emotional control
–Working memory capacity
Such measurements are used to find out whether a child suffers from:
•Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
•Autism Spectrum Disorders
•Learning Disability
•Fetal Alcohol syndrome
•Side effects of medications
•Drugs or alcohol
ADHD: Characterized by a delay of control in: •Working memory •Impulse control •Emotional control •Self-monitoring/awareness •Task initiation •Planning/prioritising
Associated with:
•functional impairment
•hyperactivity
•increased risk of – depression, substance abuse, antisocial behaviour.
•Heritable –genetic markers?
•Persistence into adulthood (for some symptoms)
Differences between children with poor working memory and ADHD:
Similarities:
Both groups have deficits in working memory
•accuracy of processing
•sustained attention
•poor learning and inattentive behaviour
Differences:
•Hyperactive/ impulsive behaviours and rule violations more frequent in ADHD
•Low WM children have slower processing speeds
Other reasons for Executive Dysfunction:
•Brain Injury
•Neurodegenerative disorders (e.g., dementia)
•Mental illness (e.g., schizophrenia, depression, OCD)
•Genetic disorders (e.g., William’s syndrome)
•Alcohol
Neurodegenerative disease •Alzheimers disease –50% of all cases of dementia –Predominantly memory impairment –EF decline in later progression of disease –Neuronal and synaptic loss hippocampus –Plaques affecting e.g., frontal cortex •Frontal (-subcortical) dementias –Variety of diseases affecting frontal lobe –EF dysfunction from onset
Parkinson’s
•Motor problems
•Cognitive flexibility
•Attention deficit
•Apathy or inertia.
•Lacking self & social awareness
•Fail planning tests
•Impaired verbal fluency
•Cognitive inflexibility & shifting problems–E.g., WCST
•Problems with self-monitoring (e.g., unaware of speech production errors)
———————————————————————————Increased EF: Bilingualism
Ellen Bialystok
• Bilingual children and adults outperform monolingual peers on EF tasks
–Simon task, easy version:
press left button for red squares (congruent)
Press right button for blue squares (incongruent - when it appears on the left hand side)
we see a difference in reaction time which is known as the simon effect. doesn’t produce a difference between bilingual children and monolingual children.
The difficult version however is one where there are frequent task changes (pressing left/right when blue appears). this is when you see big differences between bilinguals (simon effect smaller) and monolinguals.
(Bialystok et al ., 2005)
•But, different brain responses (MEG) between groups in easy task
–Both groups activate DLPFC
–Bilinguals also activate language areas (Broca’s) (Bialystok et al ., 2005)
Origins of Intelligence and Environmental Influences
WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE?
notoriously difficult to define, but this has not kept people from trying. intelligence can be described at 3 levels of analysis; as one thing, as a few things or as many things.
•Intelligence as a single trait that influences all aspects of cognitive functioning (Spearman, 1927)
– each of us possess a certain amount of g or general intelligence, g influences our ability to think and learn on all intellectual tasks.
- an example of this is Thurnstone’s primary mental abilities
•Intelligence as a few basic abilities (Cattell, 1963)
–Fluid intelligence is the ability to think flexibly and think on the spot to solve novel problems, independent of acquired knowledge
–Crystallized intelligence is the ability to use specific skills and knowledge gained through experience. it reflects long-term memory for prior experiences and is closely related to verbal ability.
- Sternberg’s Theory of Successful Intelligence
•Intelligence as numerous cognitive processes
–Three-stratum theory of intelligence
- Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory
Three-stratum theory of intelligence:
John B. Carroll (1916-2003)
A hierarchal array of abilities with g as a single factor in the centre which is known as the third stratum. nested within g is the second stratum of roughly 7 to 10 broad abilities followed by a stratum of roughly 70 specific abilities. According to this account, g is a real ability, but it is only part of a full explanation of how abilities vary across individuals.
The second broad stratum contains equally important abilities relating to such skills as crystallised and fluid intelligence, quantitative reasoning, reading and writing skills, memory skills, auditory and visual skills and skills related to speed of processing. The first stratum contained more specific abilities such as distinct verbal skills in the broader area of the verbal ability.
In studies with children, various researchers have used this account to distinguish abilities that cause a difference in intelligence cause.
Today the most common intelligence tests are the Weschler intelligence scale for children called wisk as well as the Standard Binet intelligence scale. distinct parts of the tests assess different kinds of intellectual abilities. taken together, the scores on the various subtests are meant to provide an overall assessment of intelligence. The latest version of this is made up of primary index skills, ancillary index skills, and complementary index skills.
the primary index skills along with the IQ could be recommended for a comprehensive description and evaluation of intellectual ability. ancillary index skills provide additional information regarding a child’s cognitive abilities. complimentary index skills were designed to enhance the assessment of children with learning difficulties.
The primary index skills are the main and most important aspect. but complementary index skills help, for example, learning disabilities.
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ORIGINS OF INTELLIGENCE
how these assessments can predict a persons intelligence test performance when they are mature
•Children‘s habituation measures in infancy correlate significantly with their intelligence test scores at age 11 (Rose et al., 2012)
•Children who are more inclined to explore and seek information at age 3 score significantly higher on intelligence tests at age 11 (Raine et al., 2002)
•Important aspects of intelligence may have a genetic component.
HERITABILITY OF INTELLIGENCE - Bouchard & McGue (2003):
one reason for the increasing genetic influence is that some genetic processes do not exert their effects until late childhood or adolescence.
Another reason is that children’s increasing independence with age allows them greater freedom to choose environments that are compatible with their own genetically based preferences but not necessarily with those of the parents who are raising them.
the strongest demonstrations have involved studies of monozygotic twins whose genes are 100 percent identical and compare them with dizygotic twins who share 50% of their genes. such studies have to be carefully scrutinised for possible mesogeographical problems.
Monozygotic twins in the same families are often treated similarly than dizygotic twins. Monozygotic twins reared apart are often not kept perfectly apart. across studies and accounting methodological issues, it seems to suggest that there is a heritability of intelligence. for normal western children raised in a normal range of environments, the heritability of intelligence averages at about 0.45 and raises to about 0.75 in late adolescence.
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ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES ON IQ TEST SCORES:
consists of both biological and social influences in IQ scores. there are a host of biological factors that can lower intelligence scores. for social, deprived environments clearly show lower intelligence scores. positive parenting styles that are sensitive to the child have many good outcomes. many other factors can influence intelligence such as schooling, child’s home life and caregivers.
To measure the complexity of home life affecting children’s intelligence, Bradley and Colt devised a measure known as the home, its short for home observation measurement of the environment. their home is a descriptive profile which yields a systematic assessment of the caring environment in which the child is reared. the primary goal of the instrument is to measure within the naturalistic context the quality and quantity of stimulation and support that is available to a child in a home environment. it focuses on the experience of the child (active participant) in the home environment.
Sanda Scarr (1992) claims that gene-environment relations involve 3 types of processes; - passive effects of the genotype arise when children are raised by their biological parents. these effects occur not because of anything the children do but because of the overlap between their parents genes and their own. - evocative effects of the genotype emerge through children's eliciting or influencing other peoples behaviour. - active effects of the genotype involve children's choosing environments that they enjoy. The evocative and active effects of the genotype help explain how children's IQ scores become more closely related overtime to those of their biological parents, even if the children are adopted and never see their biological parents.
Family influences:
Bradley and Caldwell (1979) devised a measure known as the HOME (Home Observation Measurement of the Environment) which can be related to a child’s family environment and the child’s IQ score. the HOME samples various aspects of children’s home life, including organisation and safety of living space; intellectual stimulation offered by parents; whether children have books of their own; amount of parent-child interaction; parents emotional support for the child; and so on. the items and subscales used in HOME was designed to assess the family environments of children from birth to adolescents.
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HEAD START PROGRAMS:
development of pre-school programs that have long term positive impacts on a child’s performance continuing into elementary school. the right kind of early experiences can have a profoundly positive long-term impact on a child’s intellectual functioning. targetting children who are at risk of underperforming later in school. include nutritional support, health care and day-care support as well as exposure to academic topics. they are more likely to finish high school through this program and associated with better school readiness. although the affects seem to fade over time.
INFLUENCES OF SCHOOLING:
•Schools as Socialising Agents
•Schools as Cultural Institutions
•Schools as Vehicles of Values
EDUCATION PRACTICE & LEARNING:
•Learners actively build their own knowledge
–Zone of proximal development (Piaget)
•Metacognitive awareness
•Importance of domain-specific learning; the development of one set of skills is independent from the development of other types of skills. solve problems in a particular domain.
DIRECT VS. INQUIRY-BASED INSTRUCTIONS:
study was done with 9yr old participants where they took part in one of four groups. children were tested on the ability to sign a simple physics experiment, for example, to find out which factor (height, length, surface) affects how far a ball will run. similar to Piagets pendulum problem. children were taught with direct instructions in all four of the groups. the study shows that this sort of proximal development where you get some high guidance initially which is efficient so they can thrive.
SCHOOLS & THOUGHT:
•Number of years of schooling directly influence performance on intelligence tests
•For each year missed at school, IQ test scores drop 6 points
•The effects of schooling on IQ test scores resemble effects of practice and training
- Group 1: students differed in age, but they had all experienced the same amount of schooling
- Group 2: students were all the same age, but some had been in school for longer than others
- Group 3: the students differed in both their age and their amount of schooling
EARLY VS LATE SCHOOLERS:
Brod, Bunge & Shing (2017)
they were doing the cats and dogs task where you should only respond when you see the picture of a dog
on the pre-trials (respond to dog), who have been to nursery. when done with pupils in primary 1 (post-test trial) they responded better and faster. on the no-go trials they are quite similar in terms of performance. on a neurological level, we see that the increase in activation of the right posterior parietal cortex increases higher in the 1st years than in nursery after a year of school. this may be an indicator that children who went to school have learned to sustain their attention more by listening to the teacher. on a behavioural level, one could not see much difference on the neurological level, we see how there is greater activity in certain brain areas that are related to, for example, sustained attention.
this helps us understand how a school can affect our cognitive functioning and intelligence test scores. how much of it is aging, genetics, environmental influences.
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Broader societal factors, such as poverty and discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities, also influence children’s IQ scores.
Measuring Intelligence
the most widely used testing instrument for children 6yrs and older is the Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). the conception of intelligence in this test is that it includes general ability (g), several moderately general abilities, and a large number of specific processes. the test yields an overall score and separate scores on 5 moderately general abilities - verbal comprehension, visual-spatial processing, working memory, fluid reasoning, and processing speed.
these reflect skills that are important within information-processing theories, correlate positively with other aspects of intelligence, and are related to important outcomes, notably school grades and later occupational success. this test as well as the Stanfor-Binet provide an overall quantitative measure of a child’s intelligence relative to that of other children of the same age. this summary is referred to as the child’s IQ. IQ scores reflect on the mean (average value) and the standard deviation (variability of scores). changes in a child’s environment (divorce, moving) can change their IQ score for the better/worse.
IQ scores are a strong predictor of academic, economic and occupational success. A child’s conscientiousness, intellectual curiosity, creativity, physical and mental health, and social skills, also exert important influences to IQ. For example, self-discipline - an ability to inhibit actions, follow rules, and avoid impulsive reactions.
