Executive Functions

Question 1

What type of study did Romine & Reynolds (2005) conduct?

Answer 1

Meta-analysis of 8 studies.

Question 2

What did Romine and Reynolds (2005) study find?

Answer 2

• Units of frontal functioning increase with age.
• Different trajectories of development are apparent for different cognitive tasks.
• Adult levels are only reached by 20s.

Question 3

What did Kail et al.’s (1991) study find?

Answer 3

• Analysed data from 72 studies comparing adults and adolescents
• Range of tasks: visual search, stroop, mental rotation, reading
• Linear relationship of RT for adults and adolescents
• Suggest global development factor.

Question 4

Define working memory.

Answer 4

Temporary storage of information for use by other cognitive processes.

Question 5

What happens to working memory during adolescence?

Answer 5

Increases in capacity and precision of recall.

Question 6

What did Gathercole et al. (2004) state about Working Memory structure?

Answer 6

• Over 700 participants from 4-15y.
• Verbal storage, visuospatial storage and executive functions assessed.
• Basic modular structure from 6y.
• Each component expands from childhood to adolescence: capacity increases linearly from 4y to early adolescence.

Question 7

How did Burnett-Heyes et al. (2012) investigate Visual Working Memory precision?

Answer 7

• 90 participants, 7-13y.
• Sensorimotor control task, 1 item and 3 item memory task.
• Precision increased with age.

Question 8

Define Executive Functions

Answer 8

Cognitive processes based in the Prefrontal Cortex that underlie goal-directed behaviour.

Question 9

What makes EF a multi-stage process?

Answer 9

Different functions mature at different times in different ways.

Question 10

Who investigated abstract reasoning and how?

Answer 10

• Dumontheil et al., 2014
• Review of behavioural and functional/structural studies.
• Suggests that prolonged development of RLPFC contributes to abstract reasoning prolonged development.
• Functional and structural support
• Behavioural studies show prolonged changes in speed and accuracy
• Also shown that later adolescence is better at responding to abstract thoughts: shorter RT with age responding to Stimulus Independent Thought

Question 11

Define prospective memory.

Answer 11

The ability to remember to remember.

Question 12

What 2 studies investigated prospective memory?

Answer 12

• Maylor and Logie, 2010: 300,000 participants, 8-50y. Peak in late adolescence, 16-19y.
• Ward et al., 2005: 90 participants, 7-21y. Word/non-word lexical task, also identifying italicized letters as PM task. Adult/adolescents better at PM task, but more self-reported activation needed for adolescent to perform the same.

Question 13

What developmental neural correlates of Working Memory have been found? (4 studies)

Answer 13

• Kilngberg et al., 2002: Visuospatial WM task vs. control task. Similar fronto-parietal network activated across age, with age-related increase.
• Kwon et al., 2002: fMRI in v-s WM task. Age related increase in brain activity in dorsolateral PFC, ventral PFC and PPC.
• Olsen et al., 2003: Development of structural and functional networks: fMRI and DTI. Correlation of FA and GM activation in fronto-parietal WM regions.
• Scherf et al., 2006: Both increases and decreases with age indicate increasing specialisation of WM networks.

Question 14

Dumontheil et al.’s (2010) study showed what about neural correlated of Abstract reasoning?

Answer 14

• 37 participants took part in task and fMRI.
• Stimulus orientated vs stimulus independent
• Lower RPFC and lower insula activation with age
• Inverted U shaped activation of RPF activation and age

Question 15

What other factors affect EF findings?

Answer 15

• Environmental vs endogenous factors

Question 16

Define cognitive control.

Answer 16

The ability to regulate thoughts and actions in accordance with internally represented goals: use to coordinate basic Executive functions.

Question 17

Which 3 coordination areas are particularly improved during adolescence?

Answer 17

Abstract reasoning, problem solving, creative thought

Question 18

What 2 pairs of brain regions interact with to lead to 2 types of motivation?

Answer 18

Mid PFC + dACC = episodic motivation

Post PFC + preSMA = contextual motviation

Question 19

What functions move forward in the brain?

Answer 19

More abstract thought and higher order control.

Question 20

Define the 2 mechanisms of cognitive control.

Answer 20

Proactive control: keep goal in mind during other things. Biases perception, attention and action systems. Continues to develop in adolescence.

Reactive control: cue from environment reminds of goal. ‘Late correction’ mechanism.

Question 21

What is unclear about the pattern of PFC development?

Answer 21

Different activation patterns have been found:

• increased activation = increased specificity and connectivity
• decreased activation = increased efficiency

Question 22

Define hot and cold EF.

Answer 22

Hot: Motivational and emotional significant contexts.
Cold: Affectively neutral contexts.

Question 23

What tasks can you use to measure cold EF?

Answer 23

Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, Stroop and Eriksen Flanker Task.

Question 24

What tasks can you use to measure hot EF?

Answer 24

Iowa Gambling Task, Driving Game and reward paradigms.

Question 25

What were Hooper et al.’s (2004) findings from the Iowa gambling task?

Answer 25

• Participants made more advantageous choices as they got older.
• 14-17y were better than children, but not as good as adults still.

Question 26

What is the main finding of neural correlates in adolescence and motivation?

Answer 26

Heightened sensitivity to reward in adolescence.

Question 27

What neural correlates have been found regarding motivation?

Answer 27

• increased ventral striatum and orbiotfrontal cortex activation
• sensitivity to socio-affective information
• increased dopamine

Question 28

Describe the dual system model.

Answer 28

There is an imbalance due to maturation, which dips towards the motivational/limbic/hot system and away from the prefrontal/neutral/cold system

Question 29

Describe the triadic model

Answer 29

3 regions interact to create cognitive control: cold PFC, harm avoidance/amygdala and reward-seeking/ventral striatum.

Question 30

Which 3 studies found an increase in performance when a reward is presented?

Answer 30

• Kohls et al., 2009: go/nogo task, improvement with any reward.
• Strang & Pollack, 2015: adapted go/nogo task with reward shown before each trial during fMRI. Child, adolescent and adult age groups. All 3 groups improved when there was a reward.
• Geier & Luna, 2010: anti-saccade task. Adding reward led to increased accuracy and lower RTs.

Question 31

Describe Teslovich et al., 2014.

Answer 31

• High vs low rewards with task difficulty adjusted for performance.
• Different pattern with age for size of reward: only adolescent increased performance when reward was high.
• Increased PFC recruitment when reward was high.