Lecture_12_Executive Function

Question 1

Executive Function

Answer 1

• High-level cognitive processes
• Often associated with the frontal
  lobes
• Control lower-level processes in the service of goal-directed behavior

Question 2

Frontal Lobes Functions

Answer 2

1. Motor control
2. Eye movements
3. Emotional and reward processing
4. Executive function

Question 3

Which cortex is most closely linked to executive function?

Answer 3

• Prefrontal lobes
• Some parts of parietal lobes

Question 4

Phineas Gage

Answer 4

• Left prefrontal cortex damage
• Dysexecutive syndrome
• Difficulties in planning, decision making, and disinhibition
• Personality change
• Disorganized behavior
• Impulsive, reckless, and vulgar
• Impaired prospective memory

Question 5

Operant Conditioning & Goal Directed Behavior

Answer 5

1. Reinforcer or outcome devaluation: Rats were made to feel sick when eating the food that had been the reinforcer
2. Rats no longer like the food
3. Rats showed very rapid extinction
   - Conclusion: Pushing lever is a goal-directed behavior not just habit

Question 6

EF is Intelligent Goal-Directed Behavior

Answer 6

Being able to alter actions in response to the circumstances
- Not all goal-directed behavior is intelligent: Magnet analogy

Question 7

History of the Concept of EF

Answer 7

1. Computer science
2. Frontal lobes: Karl H. Pribram

Question 8

Computer Science

Answer 8

Programs that control other programs
1) Automatic Supervisor
2) General Motors Executive System
- Used information processing as a model to understand the mind

Question 9

Karl H. Pribram

Answer 9

proposed that the frontal lobes may function like the ‘executive controllers’ in computers

Question 10

Baddeley’s Model of Working Memory

Answer 10

1. Central executive’
2. Visuospatial Sketchpad
3. Phonological Loop

Question 11

Shallice’s Supervisory Attentional System

Answer 11

The first formal model of EF
- Control of action
- Provide top-down influence on contention scheduling when the task is conflicted, novel, or complex

Question 12

Contention scheduling

Answer 12

• Links between perceptions and actions
• Handle and balancing automatic behavior

Question 13

Criticism of Baddeley’s Model and Shallice

Answer 13

EF most likely fractionates into different parts

Question 14

Duncan’s Multiple Demand System

Answer 14

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

Question 15

Artificial Intelligence’s Evidence of EF

Answer 15

Systems perform more efficiently when they identify sub-goals, rather trying from the start to achieve the end goal

Question 16

Dysexecutive Syndrome

Answer 16

• Disorganized behavior
• Forgets to do things
• Sexually inappropriate
• Swearing
• Insensitivity

Question 17

Executive Function Measurements

Answer 17

• Phonemic Fluency Test
• Wisconsin Card Sort Test
• Cognitive Estimation Test
• Trail Making Test
• Hayling Test
• Digit Span Test
• Towers of Hanoi
• Stroop Task

Question 18

Phonemic Fluency Test

Answer 18

Saying words that begin with a letter

Question 19

Wisconsin Card Sort Test

Answer 19

Sorting card cards into categories and adapting when the sort rule changes

Question 20

Cognitive Estimation Test

Answer 20

Estimating the number of camels in the Netherlands

Question 21

Trail Making
Test

Answer 21

Alternating between two task requirements

Question 22

Hayling Test

Answer 22

Completing sentences with a final word that makes no sense

Question 23

Digit Span Test

Answer 23

Repeating a string of numbers in reverse order

Question 24

Towers of Hanoi

Answer 24

Planning moves to achieve an end goal state

Question 25

Stroop Task

Answer 25

Naming the color of ink that color name words are written in, e.g., RED

Question 26

Diversity and Unity of EF

Answer 26

1. Response inhibition
2. Task switching
3. Working memory

Question 27

Response Inhibition

Answer 27

Stopping yourself from doing something

Question 28

Task Switching

Answer 28

Being able to do one thing, and then easily change to another

Question 29

Working Memory

Answer 29

Holding information in your mind so that you can use it

Question 30

EF in Adolescent Behaviors

Answer 30

Frontal lobe white matter full maturity at perhaps aged 25
- Uncontrolled behaviour
- E.g. Anti-social behavior

Question 31

Problem with dysexecutive syndrome patients that have high IQ and EF

Answer 31

• 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

Question 32

Multiple Errands Test

Answer 32

Shopping with a list of tasks to perform
- Hospital, private homes, museums

Question 33

Jansari Assessments of Executive Functions (JEF)

Answer 33

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)

Question 34

What Use is the Concept of Executive Function?

Answer 34

1. A transdiagnostic marker of psychopathology
   - E.g. psychotic, bipolar and unipolar depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders
2. Predict workplace performance better than intelligence, or personality
   - E.g. Hayling Test
3. Complex working memory tasks predict real-life performance
   - E.g. Reading Span Test is highly correlated with reading comprehension ability

Question 35

Frontal Lobology

Answer 35

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