Executive functions
<p>Dec 20, 2010 07:37 PM
 
(try to get brand new article pub in Cerebral Cortex by Riesa Sperling MGH  What goes down must come up...)
 
Exec fxn... useful for planning, cog flexibility, abstract thinking, etc.
 
These situations:
 </p>
<ol>
<li>Those that involve <b>planning or decision making</b></li>
<li>Those that involve <b>error correction or troubleshooting</b></li>
<li>Situations where responses are <b>not well-rehearsed or contain novel sequences of actions</b></li>
<li><b>Dangerous or technically difficult situations</b></li>
<li>Situations that require the <b>overcoming of a strong habitual response or resisting temptation</b>.</li>
</ol>
<p>Donald Broadbent:  1950s   automatic vs controlled processes... selective attention.
 
1975  Michale Posner  cognitive control and attention.
 
Work by Posner,  Joaquin Fuster, Tim Shallice, etc.
supervisory system...  schedules behavior on basis of plans or intentions.
housed in pfc.
 
Alan Baddeley:  working memory  used by central exec to do eg mental arithmetic.
 
Earl Miller and Jonathan Cohen 2001:  pfc used in cog control to repres goals and means to achieve them.
Cog control is mediated by reciprocal pfc connex with the sensory and motor cortices and limbic system.
 
assessed by Stroop task or Wisconsin Card Sorting Task  WCST.
Stroop task  uses  ACC anter cingulate and DLpfc.
 
example:  US residents are used to looking left before crossing street.
when in UK they need to suppress that and look right instead.</p>