Lecture_12_Executive Function Flashcards
Executive Function
- High-level cognitive processes
- Often associated with the frontal
lobes - Control lower-level processes in the service of goal-directed behavior
Frontal Lobes Functions
- Motor control
- Eye movements
- Emotional and reward processing
- Executive function
Which cortex is most closely linked to executive function?
- Prefrontal lobes
- Some parts of parietal lobes
Phineas Gage
- Left prefrontal cortex damage
- Dysexecutive syndrome
- Difficulties in planning, decision making, and disinhibition
- Personality change
- Disorganized behavior
- Impulsive, reckless, and vulgar
- Impaired prospective memory
Operant Conditioning & Goal Directed Behavior
- Reinforcer or outcome devaluation: Rats were made to feel sick when eating the food that had been the reinforcer
- Rats no longer like the food
- Rats showed very rapid extinction
- Conclusion: Pushing lever is a goal-directed behavior not just habit
EF is Intelligent Goal-Directed Behavior
Being able to alter actions in response to the circumstances
- Not all goal-directed behavior is intelligent: Magnet analogy
History of the Concept of EF
- Computer science
- Frontal lobes: Karl H. Pribram
Computer Science
Programs that control other programs
1) Automatic Supervisor
2) General Motors Executive System
- Used information processing as a model to understand the mind
Karl H. Pribram
proposed that the frontal lobes may function like the ‘executive controllers’ in computers
Baddeley’s Model of Working Memory
- Central executive’
- Visuospatial Sketchpad
- Phonological Loop
Shallice’s Supervisory Attentional System
The first formal model of EF
- Control of action
- Provide top-down influence on contention scheduling when the task is conflicted, novel, or complex
Contention scheduling
- Links between perceptions and actions
- Handle and balancing automatic behavior
Criticism of Baddeley’s Model and Shallice
EF most likely fractionates into different parts
Duncan’s Multiple Demand System
A common pattern of brain activations occur when ever people perform complex, attention demanding tasks
- Planning and executing actions to achieve sub-goals
- EF + fluid intelligence
- Frontal lobe + some parietal lobe
Artificial Intelligence’s Evidence of EF
Systems perform more efficiently when they identify sub-goals, rather trying from the start to achieve the end goal
Dysexecutive Syndrome
- Disorganized behavior
- Forgets to do things
- Sexually inappropriate
- Swearing
- Insensitivity
Executive Function Measurements
- Phonemic Fluency Test
- Wisconsin Card Sort Test
- Cognitive Estimation Test
- Trail Making Test
- Hayling Test
- Digit Span Test
- Towers of Hanoi
- Stroop Task
Phonemic Fluency Test
Saying words that begin with a letter
Wisconsin Card Sort Test
Sorting card cards into categories and adapting when the sort rule changes
Cognitive Estimation Test
Estimating the number of camels in the Netherlands
Trail Making
Test
Alternating between two task requirements
Hayling Test
Completing sentences with a final word that makes no sense
Digit Span Test
Repeating a string of numbers in reverse order
Towers of Hanoi
Planning moves to achieve an end goal state
Stroop Task
Naming the color of ink that color name words are written in, e.g., RED
Diversity and Unity of EF
- Response inhibition
- Task switching
- Working memory
Response Inhibition
Stopping yourself from doing something
Task Switching
Being able to do one thing, and then easily change to another
Working Memory
Holding information in your mind so that you can use it
EF in Adolescent Behaviors
Frontal lobe white matter full maturity at perhaps aged 25
- Uncontrolled behaviour
- E.g. Anti-social behavior
Problem with dysexecutive syndrome patients that have high IQ and EF
- The cognitive tests are just not the right way to measure EF in real life
- The tests are very short, and very constrained
- EF are best measured over longer periods (when attentional problems would happen more) and in more natural, less constrained contexts
Multiple Errands Test
Shopping with a list of tasks to perform
- Hospital, private homes, museums
Jansari Assessments of Executive Functions (JEF)
A role-play scenario in an office or Computer-game format
- Planning (e.g., arrange furniture for a meeting)
- Prioritization (e.g., setting a meeting agenda)
- Creative thinking (e.g., solve unexpected problems)
What Use is the Concept of Executive Function?
- A transdiagnostic marker of psychopathology
- E.g. psychotic, bipolar and unipolar depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders - Predict workplace performance better than intelligence, or personality
- E.g. Hayling Test - Complex working memory tasks predict real-life performance
- E.g. Reading Span Test is highly correlated with reading comprehension ability
Frontal Lobology
Misconception that frontal lobe function and executive function are the same thing
- It is too easy to blame every bit of abnormal behaviour on executive
function impairments or frontal lobe dysfunction
