Chapter 9
Summary
- Executive functions encompass the deployment of attention, the initiation of non-habitual action, goal-directed behaviour, planning, insight, foresight and self-regulation, and hence processes that are associated with problem-solving, an operational definition of thinking.
- Frontal lobe damage can affect performance on a wide range of tasks that are thought to tap executive functions.
- Case histories show that frontal damage may also result in changes to personality and affective behaviour.
- Neuropsychological studies have shown that impairments in the deployment of attention, in abstract and conceptual thinking and in strategy formation can follow frontal lobe damage, and these processes are important for successful problem solution.
- Findings suggest that laboratory tests may not be suitable for tapping those social problem-solving activities that frontal patients find difficult to perform in everyday life.
- Norman and Shallice have provided a theory of frontal lobe function that specifies damage to the central executive of working memory, however alternative accounts have identified weakening memory associations and an overlap with fluid intelligence.
- The executive functions appear separable but they also seem to share some underlying commonality.
- Research in this area is problematic, partly because many tests of executive functions are complex tasks which make demands on a variety of cognitive skills.
Glossary
Disinhibition Impaired response inhibition, an inability to suppress previous incorrect responses observed in patients with frontal lobe epilepsy.
Executive functions Meta-abilities necessary for appropriate social functioning and everyday problem-solving, for example the deployment of attention, self-regulation, insight, planning and goal-directed behaviour.
Perseveration An inability to shift response strategy characteristic of frontal lobe patients.
Supervisory attentional system A term used by Norman and Shallice to describe a system that can heighten a schema’s level of activation, allowing it to be in a better position to compete with other schemas for dominance and thus increasing its probability of being selected in contention scheduling.
Reading List
Fellows, L. K. (2010). Damaged self, damaged control: A component process analysis of the effects of frontal lobe damage on human decision making. In R. R. Hassin, K. N. Ochsner, & Y. Trope (eds.), Self Control in Society, Mind, and Brain.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Goldberg, E. (2009). The New Executive Brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jurado, M. B., & Rosselli, M. (2007). The elusive nature of executive functions: A review of our current understanding. Neuropsychological Review, 17,213–233.
Levine, B., Turner, G.R. , & Stuss, D. T. (2008). Rehabilitation of frontal lobe functions. In D. T.
Stuss, G. Winocur, & I. H. Robertson (eds.), Cognitive Neurorehabilitation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.