The executive brain Flashcards
Control processes that enable an individual to optimize performance in situations requiring the operation and coordination of several more basic cognitive processes
Executive functions
A task in which participants must point to a new object on each trial and thus maintain a working memory for previously selected items
Self-ordered pointing task
A test of verbal fluency in which participants must generate words beginning with a letter (ex: âFâ) in a limited amount of time
FAS Test
Response interference from naming the ink color of a written color name (ex: the word BLUE is printed in RED ink, and participants are asked to say the ink color)
Stroop Test
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)
Go/No-Go Test
A behavioral tendency to make immediate responses or seek immediate rewards
Impulsivity
A test of executive functions involving rule induction and rule use
Wisconsin Card Sorting Test
Failure to shift away from a previous response
Perseveration
Discarding a previous schema and establishing a new one
Task-switching
A slowing of response time due to discarding a previous schema and setting up a new one
Switch cost
Carrying out several tasks in succession; requires both task-switching and maintaining future goals while current goals are being dealt with
Multi-tasking
Learning that a previously rewarded stimulus or response is no longer rewarded
Reversal learning
A proposal that emotional and bodily states associated with previous behaviors are used to influence decision-making
Somatic Marker Hypothesis
A task in which participants must learn to avoid risky choices (generating a net loss) in favor (less risky and more rewarding) choices
Iowa Gambling Task
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
Sociopathy
The tendency for future rewards to have less subjective value than the same reward received now (or in the nearer future)
Delay discounting
A set of brain regions in the lateral prefrontal and parietal lobes activated by a large range of tasks relative to baseline
Multiple-demand network
The use of neuroscientific methods and theories to account for economic decision-making
Neuroeconomics
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)
Ultimatum Game
Flexible thinking and problem-solving in novel situations, independent of acquired knowledge
Fluid intelligence
The ability to use prior expertise and knowledge
Crystallized intelligence
The processing of relating information currently held in mind back to the task requirements
Monitoring
Maintaining focus on the task requirements over a period of time
Sustained attention
An event-related potential component in EEG that can be detected at the scalp when an error is made
Error-related negativity
