Week 8 - Executive Functioning

Question 1

What is Executive Functioning?

Answer 1

Set of neurocognitive skills that promote adaptive functioning
• Conscious, goal-directed action

Question 2

Inhibitory Control

Answer 2

Control your thoughts, attention, and behavior
• Override internal and external forces
Selective attention/attentional control
• Ability to selectively attend to some information and filter out extraneous information (flanker task)
Delay of Gratification
• Not taking a reward now so that you get a bigger reward later (marshmallow task)

Question 3

Working Memory

Answer 3

• Mental sketch pad
  • Verbal
  • Visual-spatial

Question 4

Set Shifting

Answer 4

Mental flexibility
• If something isn’t working, can you try something new?
(Wisconsin card sorting task)

Question 5

3 components of executive functioning

Answer 5

1. inhibitory control
2. working memory
3. set shifting

Question 6

Executive Functioning in Infancy

Answer 6

At around 7 to 8 months, infants will retrieve an object that has been hidden in one of two locations and obscured for 2- 3 seconds

Question 7

Executive Functioning during the Preschool Years

Answer 7

Ages 2 to 5 years
• Rapid gains in executive functioning during this period
Dimensional Change Card Sort Task:
- 4yo easily shift when rule changes
- 3yo get stuck even though they know the rule changed

Question 8

Executive Functioning during Childhood

Answer 8

Ages 6 to 12 years
• Improvement in selective attention
• Working memory capacity continues to increase
• More complex planning tasks:
       • Improved accuracy
       • Improved efficiency

Question 9

Development of Executive Functioning During Adolescence and Beyond

Answer 9

Ages 13- to 18-years
• Inhibitory control and working memory both reach adult-like performance during adolescence
• Depending on task, performance may be adult like as early as 12-years-of-age
• Set shifting: Adolescents are as good as adults at adapting new rules
• Show greater switch costs

Question 10

Stability of Executive Functioning

Answer 10

Mounting evidence suggests that executive functioning is stable across childhood and adolescence
• Children who stronger executive functioning skills continue to have stronger executive functioning skills in adolescence and beyond

Question 11

Outcomes Associated with Executive Functioning

Answer 11

Better inhibitory control during childhood predicted
• Better physical health
• Better mental health
• Greater income 
• Fewer arrests
• Greater happiness

Question 12

Scaffolding

Answer 12

Adults help children to reach goals they could not reach on their own
- may promote executive functioning

Question 13

Mechanisms that cognitive developmentalists think

probably help children learn about other minds

Answer 13

• Mental state talk (parent-child conversation)

- Meaningful interactions with peers and siblings

Question 14

Quinean Bootstrapping

Answer 14

A mechanism for development whereby use of a label,
like “think,” provides a clue for children that there’s some
important category to learn about. They then use
contextual clues to eventually piece together what the
semantic properties of the concept (within their cultural
milieu)