Executive Functioning

Question 1

What is Executive Functioning?

Answer 1

• Set of neurocognitive skills that promote adaptive functioning
• Conscious, goal-directed action
• Many tasks require executive functioning
  
  • Taking turns in a game
  • Getting dressed
  • Solving math problems

Divided in 3 components:

• Inhibitory control
• Working memory
• Set shifting

Question 2

Inhibitory Control

Answer 2

• Control your thought, attention and behavior
• Override internal and external forces
• Selective attention/ attentional control
  
  • Ability to selectively attend to some information and filter our extraneous information
• Self Control
• Delay of Gratification

Question 3

Selective Attention

Answer 3

Ability to selectively attend to some information and filter our extraneous information

Question 4

Measuring Attention

Answer 4

• Flanker Task

Question 5

Flanker task

Answer 5

You have to press a button depending on the image in the center of the screen

Notice that besided the target there might be images that will either encourage, discourage or neutral the correct answer.

Question 6

Self-Control

Answer 6

Response inhibition

Question 7

Measuring Response Inhibition

Answer 7

• Stop-signal task
• Go/no go task

Question 8

Stop-Signal task

Answer 8

• Respond to a stimulus by pressing a button
• On some trials, a sound woudl indicat that you should not press the button

Question 9

Go / no go task

Answer 9

• If you see one stimuli you should respond and if you see a different one you should not

Question 10

Delay of Gratification

Answer 10

• Not taking a reward now to have a bigger reward later

Question 11

Measuring Delay of Gratification

Study 1

Answer 11

Study my Mischel and Ebbesen 1970

• Children choose a prefereed ad a less preferred reward
• They were tolds that they could have the less preferred reward anytime
• To get he more preferred reward, they have to sit very still in their chair and wait for the experimenter to come back (15 min)
• Results:
  
  • If the preschoolerds can see the reward they wait about 5 minutes (2 out of 8 waited 15 min)
  • If they can see both rewards, they wait about 1 minute (no one waited the whole time)
  • If they can see neither reward they wait the longest

Question 12

Working Memory

Answer 12

• Mental sketch pad
• Verbal
• Visual-spatial

Question 13

Measuring Working Memory

Answer 13

• Digit span
• Forward digit span
• Backward digit span
• Order them

Question 14

Set Shifting

Answer 14

• Mental flexibility
• If something isn’t working, can you try something new?

Question 15

Measuring Set Shifting

Answer 15

Winsconsin Card Sorting Task

You have 4 cards, you have to place a new card with the correcponding card given a feature.

Question 16

Executive Functioning in Infancy

Answer 16

• Infants engage in behaviours that require executive functioning
• At around 7 to 8 months infants will retrieve an object that has been hidden in one of two locations and obscured for 2 to 3 seconds
• Think about what is required to find a hidden object
  
  • You have to remember where it is
  • Use the information about its location to coordinate behaviour

Question 17

Executive Functioning during Preschool years

Answer 17

• Ages 2 to 5 years
• Rapid gains in executive functioning during this period
• When tested with the Flanker task, we can observe an accentuated increase in the score between the ages 3 to 5.
• There is also:
  
  • improvement in selective attention
  • Working memory capacity increases
  • Improvement in set shifting abilities

Question 18

Improvement in Set Shifting during the Preschool years

Answer 18

Study by Zelazo 2006,

Dimensional Change Card Sort Task

• This was a task similar to the Winsconsin Sorting Card task but simplified for younger children
• Results:
  
  • 4 years old are capable of set shifting when the rules change
  • 3 years old get stuck
    
    • They persevere on the previous intruction even when they are reminded of the new rules
    • They can even tell you what the new rule is

Question 19

Executive Functioning during Childhood

Answer 19

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

Question 20

How to measure the complexity of planning ?

Answer 20

Tower of London:

How will you move a ball to a goal position while respecting a set of constraints

Question 21

Development of Executive Functioning during Adolescence and beyond…

Answer 21

• 13 to 18 years old
• Inhibitory control and working memory reach adult like performance during adolescence
• Depending on task it, it might be adult like performance as early as 12 years of age
• Set shifting:
  
  • Adolescents are as good as adults to adapt to new rules
  • Show greater switch cost

Question 22

Indivial Difference in Executive Functioning

Answer 22

• There are pronounced individual differences in executive functioning
  
  • Stability
  • Outcomes
  • Predictors

Question 23

Stability of Executive Functioning

Answer 23

• Mounting evidence suggests that executive functioning is stable across childhood and adolescence
  
  • Children with stronger executive control skills continue to have strong executive control in adolescence and beyond
• How well children perform on measures of executive functioning in childhood predicts how well they will perform on taskts of executive functioning in development

Question 24

Example of how the measure of the executive control in childhood could predict executive functioning skills in the future

Answer 24

• Delaying gratification in preschool predicts later indicators of executive functioning
• Length of time the child waited in preschool predicted:
  
  • better inhibitory control at 18 and at 40 years old
  • better attention during adolescence

Question 25

Outcomes Associated with Executive Functioning

Answer 25

* In Mischel's original study, delay of gratification in preschool predicted * SAT scores (after accounting for IQ) * Education level * During adolescence: * Parent ratings of academic and social competence * In the 30s * Body mass index * drug use * Delay of gratification is one specific facet of inhibitory control * It does not predict academic outcomes (Watt et al)

Question 26

Name the limitations of the predictions made by Mischel's study

Answer 26

* Sample was small * longitudinal data only available for about 50 paticipants * Selective sample * Children attending Standfor University * Did not control other variables that might explain the association * Socioeconomic status (SES)

Question 27

Outcomes Associated with Executice Functioning Study 1

Answer 27

Study by Watts et al 2018 * 918 4.5 year olds * 552 children were lower SES (mom had not completed college) * 336 were higher SES (mom had completed college) * Task: varian of the marshmallow task * 7 min wait * Control variables: * Family * mom's education * mom's vocabulary * SES * Home environment: * learning materials * language stimulation * physical environment * **Results:** * **​**See W6E5 (12, 13) * lower-SES children waited less time * In the lower-SES sample, once control variables were accounted for _no association between delay of gratification and acedmic achievement_ * In the higher-SES the same pattern was found * Weak associations between delay of gratification at 4.5 years and academic achievement at age 15 year, once you account for other variables

Question 28

Outcomes Associated with Executive Functioning Study 2

Answer 28

Study by Moffitt et al. 2011 * 1000 children born in the same city and followed for 32 years * Measured inhibitory control between ages 3 and 11: * Better at waiting turn * less easily distracted * more persistent * less impulsive * Examined associations between this measure of inhibitory control and outcomes at 32 years of age * Controlled IQ, gender and SES * **Results:** * better inhibitory control during childhood predicted * better physical health * better mental health * greater income * fewer arrests * greater happiness * When you compares sibilings, the sibiling with better inhibitory control had better outcomes

Question 29

Links between Caregiving and Executive Functioning

Answer 29

Study by Hughes and Ensor 2005 * Does scaffolding by parents contribute to better Executive Functioning? * Observes 125 two years old in a 10 min interaction with thei moms * Coded Scafforlding behaviours * open ended questions * praise * encouragement * elaborating * Maternal scaffolding at two year olds predicts executive control at four years old after accounting for earlier executive control and family SES.