The executive brain

Question 1

Executive functions

Answer 1

Control processes that enable an individual to optimize performance in situations requiring the operation and coordination of several more basic cognitive processes.

Question 2

Self-ordered pointing task

Answer 2

A task in which participants must point to a new object on each trial and thus maintain a working memory for previously selected items.

Question 3

FAS Test

Answer 3

A test of verbal fluency in which participants must generate words beginning with a letter in a limited amount of time.

Question 4

Stroop test

Answer 4

Response interference from naming the ink color of a written color name (e.g., the word BLUE is printed in red ink and participants are asked to say the ink color, i.e., ‘red’).

Question 5

Go/No-Go Test

Answer 5

A test of response inhibition in which participants must respond to a frequent stimulus (go trials) but withhold a response to another stimulus (no go trials).

Question 6

Impulsivity

Answer 6

A behavioral tendency to make immediate responses or seek immediate rewards.

Question 7

Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

Answer 7

A test of executive functions involving rule induction and rule use.

Question 8

Perseveration

Answer 8

Failure to shift away from a previous response.

Question 9

Task-switching

Answer 9

Discarding a previous schema and establishing a new one.

Question 10

Switch cost

Answer 10

A slowing of response time due to discarding a previous schema and setting up a new one.

Question 11

Multi-tasking

Answer 11

Carrying out several tasks in succession; requires both task-switching and maintaining future goals while current goals are being dealt with.

Question 12

Reversal learning

Answer 12

Learning that a previously rewarded stimulus or response is no longer rewarded.

Question 13

Somatic Marker Hypothesis

Answer 13

A proposal that emotional and bodily states associated with previous behaviors are used to influence decision making.

Question 14

Iowa Gambling Task

Answer 14

A task in which participants must learn to avoid risky choices (generating a net loss) in favor of less risky (and more rewarding) choices.

Question 15

Sociopathy

Answer 15

A personality disorder (now called Anti-Social Personality Disorder) associated with irresponsible and unreliable behavior that is not personally advantageous; an inability to form lasting commitments or relationships; egocentric thinking; and a marked degree of impulsivity.

Question 16

Delay discounting (or temporal discounting)

Answer 16

The tendency for future rewards to have less subjective value than the same reward received now (or in the nearer future).

Question 17

Multiple-demand network

Answer 17

A set of brain regions in the lateral prefrontal and parietal lobes activitated by a large range of tasks relative to baseline.

Question 18

Neuroeconomics

Answer 18

The use of neuroscientific methods and theories to account for economic decision making.

Question 19

Ultimatum Game

Answer 19

A two-player game in which one player proposes a split of money and a responder either accepts the money (and obtains the agreed split) or rejects it (and both players get nothing).

Question 20

Fluid Intelligence

Answer 20

Flexible thinking and problem-solving in novel situations, independent of acquired knowledge.

Question 21

Crystallized Intelligence

Answer 21

The ability to use prior expertise and knowledge.

Question 22

Monitoring

Answer 22

The process of relating information currently held in mind back to the task requirements.

Question 23

Sustained attention

Answer 23

Maintaining focus on the task requirements over a period of time.

Question 24

Error-related negativity

Answer 24

An event-related potential component in EEG that can be detected at the scalp when an error is made.