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Neal

The-Effect-of-Physical-Activity-on-Executive-Function-A-Brief-Commentary-on-Definitions... - 1 views

shared by Neal on 15 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • Executive function is a higher order cognitive ability that controls basic, underlying cognitive functions for purposeful, goal-directed behavior and that has been associated with frontal lobe activity
  • Kramer and his colleagues hypothesized that the effects of physical activity would be most evident for frontally dependent tasks such as executive function tasks (Kramer, Humphrey, Larish, Logan, & Strayer, 1994).
  • When statistically summarized, results indicated that chronic physical activity is particularly beneficial for executive function tasks (effect size = 0.68), as compared with controlled tasks (effect size = 0.46), spatial tasks (effect size = 0.42), and speeded tasks (effect size = 0.27).
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  • In addition, Salthouse, Atkinson, and Berish (2003) indicated that some specific executive functions (i.e., inhibition, updating, and time sharing) are potential mediators of age-related cognitive decline in normal adults, supporting the hypothesis that physical activity might serve to delay typical age-related declines in cognition.
  • Executive function, also known as controlled cognition, resource-demanding cognition, or executive control, is generally defined as a “higher level” or “meta-” cognitive function that manages other more basic cognitive functions (Alvarez & Emory, 2006; Baddeley, 1986; Salthouse, 2007) and the regulation of emotions and attention (Bell & Deater-Deckard, 2007; Blair & Diamond, 2008; Lewis et al., 2008) necessary for purposeful and goal-directed behaviors.
  • n the physical activity literature, the focus thus far has been on the cognitive control aspects of executive function
  • executive function in the physical activity literature is now typically described as planning, scheduling, inhibition, and working memory (Colcombe & Kramer, 2003; Hillman et al., 2006; Kramer et al., 1999).
  • Hughes and Graham (2002) used the classic distinction between automatic and controlled action and indicated that executive function involves planning and decision making, error correction, the implementation of a novel series of actions, performance in situations that are dangerous or technically difficult, and performance that requires overcoming a robust habitual response.
  • Similarly, Rabbitt (1997) described executive functions as those dealing with novelty, planning and acting on strategies for performance, and using feedback to alter subsequent responses.
  • Thus, these definitions reflect an emphasis on executive function as critical for performance in novel situations or when the performer is required to inhibit a previously learned response.
  • Salthouse (2005) has called for caution in using executive function as though it represents a construct that is distinct from other cognitive dimensions.
  • Researchers examining the effect of physical activity on executive function are encouraged to consider the complexity of the executive function construct and to give careful consideration to whether to include multiple measures of executive function to identify the effect on the broad construct of executive function or to focus on a specific executive function (e.g., shifting, inhibition, or updating) in their research (Miyake, Emerson, & Friedman, 2000a; Miyake et al., 2000b; Salthouse, 2007) .
  • Miyake et al. (2000a) suggested that because it is impossible to find a “pure” executive function measure, multiple neuropsychological measures should be used to minimize “task impurity” and to assess the broad construct. Another solution is to be clear in understanding the subcomponent(s) that are assessed by a particular behavioral measure (Jurado & Rosselli, 2007) and to use care in not overgeneralizing to the broader construct of executive function
  • the WCST is sensitive to frontal lobe damage and is purported to assess the executive functions of switching, inhibition, updating, and selective attention (Alvarez & Emory, 2006; Greve et al., 2005).
  • To perform the TMT successfully requires a variety of abilities, including number recognition, visual scanning with a motor component, and mental flexibility
  • In addition, performance on the TMT-B has increased requirements (as compared with the TMT-A) in terms of task-set inhibition ability, cognitive flexibility, and the ability to maintain a response set (Arbuthnott & Frank, 2000; Kortte, Horner, & Windhan, 2002). To isolate the executive function requirements of the TMT-B from the general processes of perceiving and responding, the difference between TMT-B and TMT-A or the ratio of TMT-B to TMT-A has typically been used as the measure of executive function (Arbuthnott & Frank, 2000; Salthouse et al., 2003).
  • This is likely to be indicative of the relatively recent interest in executive function in exercise psychology and is illustrative of how little data we actually have available on the effects of physical activity on executive function.
  • Another way of looking at this is that only 10 of the 29 executive function tasks identified as being most commonly used in the neuropsychology literature have been used in studies testing the relationship between physical activity and cognitive performance.
  • a lack of consistency in terms of how executive function has been operationalized in the two fields
Neal

Psychological Flexibility as a Fundamental Aspect of Health - 0 views

  • Psychological flexibility spans a wide range of human abilities to: recognize and adapt to various situational demands; shift mindsets or behavioral repertoires when these strategies compromise personal or social functioning; maintain balance among important life domains; and be aware, open, and committed to behaviors that are congruent with deeply held values.
  • Psychological Flexibility as a Fundamental Aspect of Health Achieving psychological health is one of the foremost goals of human existence.
  • We are not disputing that positive emotions are important (Fredrickson, 1998), strengths or positive traits are important (Peterson & Seligman, 2004), or that the satisfaction of basic needs for belonging, competence, and autonomy are important (Deci & Ryan, 2000). However, these static approaches fail to capture the dynamic, fluctuating, and contextually-specific behaviors that people deploy when navigating the challenges of daily life.
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      positive emotions positive traits strengths
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  • Indeed, research on psychological flexibility has for the past five decades traveled by a multitude of different names, among them ego-resiliency (Block, 1961), executive control (Posner & Rothbart, 1998), response modulation (Patterson & Newman, 1993), and self-regulation (Carver & Scheier, 1998; Muraven & Baumeister, 2000)
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      Psychological flexibiligy
  • Psychological flexibility actually refers to a number of dynamic processes that unfold over time. This could be reflected by how a person: (1) adapts to fluctuating situational demands, (2) reconfigures mental resources, (3) shifts perspective, and (4) balances competing desires, needs, and life domains.
  • one might question whether any regulatory strategy provides universal benefits, as opposed to contingent benefits that hinge on the situation and the values and goals that we import.
  • These pathological processes span cognitive rigidities such as rumination and worry (Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco, & Lyubomirsky, 2008), patterns of behavioral perseveration, as well as a relative inability to rebound following stressful events, and difficulties planning and working for distant goals.
  • As these skills flourish, people become more versatile and more adept at committing finite attention and energy to meaningful interests and values (Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999)
  • At subjective, behavioral, and biological levels of analysis, researchers continue to find that psychopathology is relatively independent from positive experiences
  • Thus, rather than focusing on specific content (within a person), definitions of psychological flexibility have to incorporate repeated transactions between people and their environmental contexts.
  • The work on ego-resiliency is extensive. Briefly, an important prediction is that ego-resilience would be associated with greater progression through the stage of identity development from being young and impulsive to learning social rules and conforming and for the most mature, advanced stages such as being wise and self-determined (Loevinger, 1987)
  • Instead, consider the flexible application of different types of emotional expression as the situation warrants.
  • the ability to modulate behavior as required by the situation contributed to real-world adjustment over and above any particular regulatory strategy.
  • Interestingly, variability in appraisals and coping strategies was positively related to the effectiveness of handling stressors. More importantly, the 30% of people demonstrating coping flexibility were better adjusted on a daily basis and showed less anxiety and depressive symptoms over a 1-week period than people demonstrating more rigid adherence to particular coping strategies, regardless of whether they were problem- or emotion-focused, active- or passive-focused. These findings on the benefits of flexibility compared with any particular configuration of self-regulatory strategies have been replicated in subsequent experimental and prospective studies (e.g., Cheng, 2003; Cheng & Cheung, 2005).
  • By ego-resiliency, we meant…a dynamic ability to temporarily change from modal reaction or perceptual tendencies to reactions and percepts responsive to the immediately pressing situation and, more generally, to the inevitably fluctuating situational demands of life. In particular, the ego-resiliency construct entailed the ability to, within personal limits, situationally reduce behavioral control as well as to situationally increase behavioral control, to expand attention as well as to narrow attention, to regress in the service of the ego as well as to progress in the service of the ego…The relatively unresilient or vulnerable individual displayed little adaptive flexibility, was disquieted by the new and altered, was perseverative or diffuse in responding to the changed or strange, was made anxious before competing demands, and had difficulty in recouping from the traumatic.
  • Rumination involves stereotypical and perseverative thinking about the reasons for and meaning of one’s own sad, dysphoric affect. Not only is a ruminative response style inflexible in that it involves habitual application of circular, looping thoughts, it also represents a passive, inactive mode that displaces more active engagement with the environment; engagement that could potentially relieve depressed mood.
  • For adolescents at age 14 and adults at age 23, ego-resilience was strongly associated with higher stages of identity development.
  • Upon reaching more mature stages of identity development, young adults are visibly more flexible in multiple contexts compared with less mature peers.
  • Besides the development of maturity and wisdom, the most characteristic features of ego-resilient children and adolescents (as rated by teachers, parents, and independent observers) include: vitality, curious and exploratory, self-reliant and confident, creative, an abundance of meaningful experiences, abilities to effectively master challenges, and quick recovery following stressful events (Gjerde, Block, & Block, 1986; Klohnen, 1996).
  • Equally useful to understanding the psychologically flexible person are the least representative features of ego-resilient youth: rigid repetitive strategies to handle stress, socially inappropriate emotional expressiveness, and discomfort in unpredictable and challenging environments.
  • Although causality cannot be determined, flexibility appears to move people from extrinsic motivated actions toward self-determination and the related health benefits
  • In the ACT model, flexibility is about being aware of thoughts and feelings that unfold in the present moment without needless defense, and depending on what the situation affords, persisting or changing behavior to pursue central interests and goals.
  • psychological flexibility was on average correlated .42 with outcomes ranging from job performance and satisfaction over a 1-year interval, daily activity engagement in pain patients, and mental health (Hayes, Luoma, Bond, Masuda, & Lillis, 2006)
  • Being more open and accepting of emotional experiences, being willing to engage in difficult activities to persist in the direction of important values, allows a person to pursue a rich, meaningful life right away.
  • Emotional preferences should hinge on the goals people are inclined to pursue. We have not given due consideration to the task of identifying which emotions are functional and at what levels of intensity and type of expressiveness. Sometimes negative, unpleasant emotions can be more useful than positive emotions. Taking advantage of this knowledge, teaching people this knowledge, is to explicitly address psychological flexibility.
  • Another perspective on the health benefits of psychological flexibility arrives from work on the ability to switch one’s focus from one life domain to another, one time perspective to another, and ensure that various important elements of a person’s identity are being satisfied in a harmonious manner.
  • If these examples suggest anything, it is that greater satisfaction and meaning in life can be captured by shifting temporal perspectives when the situation requires a particular mode of being (Boniwell & Zimbardo, 2004).
  • Similarly, recent daily-diary and prospective studies show that when time is allocated effectively in important life domains (e.g., work, school, leisure, relationships) to minimize discrepancy between a person’s actual day-to-day activities and their ideal, greater well-being is experienced. This includes life satisfaction, frequent positive emotions, infrequent negative emotions, and the ability to satisfy needs involving belonging, competence, and autonomy (Sheldon, Cummins, & Khamble, in press)
  • As we will highlight below, a signal feature of many disorders is that a person’s fluid transactions with the environment break down and responses become stereotyped and invariable.
  • Ironically, by being flexible and living in service of our deepest values instead of being narrowly focused on achieving happiness, we end up experiencing more frequent joy and meaning in life and less distress; we end up with greater vitality and degrees of freedom for how to live each moment (Hayes et al., 1999, 2004).
  • Recent extensions add important layers of complexity by suggesting that researchers and clinicians should look beyond the stereotypically negative content of attributions as a marker of depression risk to consider (1) the process of fixedly deploying the same attributions across different situations, a construct known as explanatory inflexibility (Moore & Fresco, 2007), and (2) the connections between an inflexible explanatory style and inflexible coping behavior (Fresco, William, & Nugent, 2006).
  • one commonality involves psychological inflexibility with respect to responses involving fear and anxiety.
  • Our premise, shared with the “acceptance-based approaches,” is that a flexible approach to one’s experiences will be associated with health and well-being, even when those experiences are sometimes painful.
  • There is growing evidence that the anxiety disorders are characterized by experiential avoidance for a variety of experiences, whether it is the experience of bodily arousal in panic disorder (Zvolensky & Eifert, 2000), the fear of strong emotional impulses in generalized anxiety disorder (McLaughlin, Mennin, & Farach, 2007), or concerns about openly expressing and exposing intense emotional experiences to other people (Kashdan & Steger, 2006). In turn, avoidance responses, as they become the default behavioral response, maintain the disorder over time.
  • Finally, as with depression, anxiety disorders are associated with inflexibility of physiological responding. Perhaps most notably, researchers have shown repeatedly that individuals with anxiety disorder exhibit reduced flexibility in autonomic responding (e.g., Thayer, Friedman, & Borkovec, 1996)
  • In fact, the pervasive and widespread nature of evidence for inflexibility in so many different response systems in so many different mental disorders is potentially overwhelming. Can these problems be reduced to a smaller core set? If so, what are the most important forms of inflexibility?
  • For example, individuals with higher resting CVC perform better than low CVC individuals on experimental tasks that require executive function. High CVC is associated with good performance on the Stroop task, which requires people to overcome attentional interference, as well as good performance on the n-back task (Johnsen et al., 2003; Hansen, Johnsen, & Thayer, 2003), which is a working memory task that requires people to monitor a continuous sequence of stimuli and remember which stimuli were presented n trials ago.
  • Relative to participants who did not maintain the exercise routine, those who maintained the exercise regimen had higher resting CVC and better functioning on an executive functioning task
  • The Building Blocks of Psychological Flexibility
  • Now that we have demonstrated the benefits of psychological flexibility and the costs of inflexibility, we consider three critical factors that influence the likelihood of being psychologically flexible and gaining access to its benefits:
  • Acceptance and awareness processes, coupled by a curious and receptive attitude toward negative or potentially negative experiences appear to be a precursor to psychological flexibility
  • prioritize and integrate cognitive capacities.
  • Essentially, executive functioning provides critical neuropsychological support for self-regulation
  • In fact, as discussed below, it is hard to imagine psychological flexibility without at least adequate performance in this domain.
  • When someone is described as being psychologically flexible, they are more apt to be versatile, using top-down strategies. That is, they show an awareness of what a situation requires and an ability to organize and prioritize strategies that “fit” the situation rather than relying on dominant, default strategies (Fleeson, 2001).
  • Another related, essential cognitive function is the ability to tolerate distress and develop an open, receptive attitude toward emotions, thoughts, and sensations.
  • executive functioning, default mental states, and personality configurations
  • When a person is unable to accept frustration and unwanted negative experiences, attentional capacity and decision-making capabilities are narrowed.
  • Instead of flexibly responding to a situation in an active manner, a person preoccupied with avoiding experiences is psychologically unavailable to adapt to the cues afforded by an existing situation.
  • This is because negative emotions and obstacles are an inevitable part of being a human that is constantly learning and growing, going through developmental changes in identity and social roles across the lifespan, experiencing daily hassles and stressors, and striving to organize a life built around meaningful goals and values (
  • Other social neuroscience studies provide additional support for the notion that acceptance of and openness to experience, and related emotion regulation processes are bound to executive functioning
  • Finally, executive functioning also typically includes working memory and recall, information processing speed, and the ability to inhibit behavior. These, too, are relevant to psychological flexibility, for similar reasons.
  • A weak danger cue in the environment may be prepotent, shutting down executive control, leading a person to conflate their anxious feelings as evidence of the dangerous potential that was never actualized. In the end, this person will be more worried and avoidant in similar, future situations, constricting their life space by tiny portions; a precedent that interferes with flexibility and the pursuit of a pleasurable, engaging, and meaningful life.
  • Taken together, robust executive functioning is critical for modulating responses to suit the circumstances and achieving desired outcomes—whether it is extracting rewards, reducing behavioral control, or some other situationally-bound strategy.
  • Social situations impose even greater demands upon executive functioning because of the need to simultaneously represent the desired outcomes of both the self and the other parties, without compromising either one
  • If human beings lacked predictive ability and were required to be in conscious control of how to interpret and respond to each gesture in each interaction, social interactions would slow to a crawl, relationships would have to be continually renewed, and it is hard to imagine how social groups and societies would ever form.
  • in enhancing psychological flexibility
  • To be adept at forming and maintaining significant, meaningful social relationships, there is utility in recognizing the limitations of our biased social judgments.
  • end our search for new and potentially useful information about each situation being different (even slightly) from any other (Kashdan, 2009). Although this can be energy consuming, this act prevents misjudgments of people and situations, and increases engagement, creativity, and the type of mindful, compassionate style of communication that is attractive and desirable to other people.
  • The problem is that habitual thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and goals are easily activated automatically, pulling us toward common well-worn directions as opposed to being sensitive to the unique hedonic or utilitarian value of acting differently (Aarts & Dijksterhuis, 2000; Foa & Kozak, 1986). Essentially, conscious free will and flexible responding is subtly reduced by habits.
  • Unfortunately, the default mindset of most adults is a relatively inactive state where the past unduly influences the presen
  • Regardless of origin, there is evidence that humans commonly fail to detect novel distinctions and opportunities in the immediate environment and this can erode psychological flexibility.
  • Relatively few people can marshal the psychological flexibility to override default mental state in demanding visual tasks.
  • There is other evidence that experts often attempt to adapt old templates to new situations because of inflated confidence in their abilities to the neglect of contextual information.
  • Taken together, this line of research suggests that people are relatively insensitive to context and perspective in the present when there is the potential to rely on prior knowledge and experience.
  •  
    "The Relationship Between Heart Rate Variability, Psychological Flexibility, and Pain in Neurofibromatosis Type 1"
Neal

Executive and Non-Executive Cognitive Abilities in Teenagers: Differences as a Function... - 1 views

shared by Neal on 15 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • Intelligence can be understood as an ability to learn from experience and adapt to the environment
  • according to views based in neuropsychology, behavior is based on three major functional systems that, in addition to emotional aspects related to personality and emotion variables, include cognitive and executive functions (Lezak, Howieson, & Loring, 2004)
  • Cognitive functions involve behavioral aspects related to information processing.
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  • Executive functions reflect an individual’s ability to engage in independent and self- regulated behavior.
  • Considering that EF are also, to a certain extent, cognitive functions, we use in this paper the terminology “non-executive cognitive functions” to refer to information-processing abilities in order to differentiate between both constructs.
  • Cognitive functions encompass diverse abilities involved in information recording (input), its processing, maintenance and response (output). Among them, we address in this study linguist abilities, such as vocabulary and phonological short-term memory, and visual-spatial abilities, such as perception and visual short-term memory
  • among visual abilities, visual perception is a set of processes that enables recognizing, organizing, and interpreting information based on visual sensory stimulation, while visual memory refers to one’s ability to retain and recover visual representation in the absence of stimuli.
  • EF, in turn, refer to one’s ability to engage in objective-based behavior (Sullivan, Riccio, & Castillo, 2009). Three abilities are considered major EF: inhibition, which enables one to control inappropriate behavior and attention to distractors (selective attention); working memory that is responsible for maintaining and mentally handling information; and cognitive flexibility, which enables changing perspectives and adapting to different contexts (Diamond, 2013; Miyake et al., 2000).
  • These main abilities are involved in and can promote other complex EF such as planning, decision-making, and even fluency
  • functions cover “what and how much” an individual is capable of.
  • From this perspective, EF cover “how” an individual does something, while cognitive
  • even among EF-related abilities, some are more strongly associated with intelligence measures than others. For instance, in adults, working memory, and more specifically the central executive component, appears more strongly related both to Gc, and especially to Gf intelligence, while the relationship with other executive abilities is less consistent
  • In fact, studies have shown the contribution of Gf, together with working memory and inhibition, to solving EF traditional tests, such as the Tower of London, which assess planning (Zook, Dávalos, Delosh, & Davis, 2004).
  • Neuroimaging studies agree that the prefrontal cortex is a neurological subtract common to both EF and Gf (Abreu et al., 2014).
  • The group of gifted children presented higher performance on EF tests when compared to the other two groups, but this superior performance was not observed on non-executive tests assessing other cognitive abilities.
  • these findings enable us to infer that the higher the intelligence measured by the Raven’s Progressive Matrices—General Scale, i.e. a Gf measure, the better the performance in most executive and non-executive measures.
  • The VSI group presented the best performance in verbal fluency, a complex measure of EF, which involves auditory working memory, switching and inhibition, in addition to oral language abilities (Dias & Seabra, 2014). There were, however, no differences among the groups in regard to the measures of cognitive flexibility and attention/inhibitory control. This pattern of association between intelligence and EF has been already reported in the literature
  • The data allow the inference that, even though there is a relationship between EF and Gf, this relationship can be understood in a generic manner and seems to be specific to certain EF abilities (Abreu et al., 2014). Looking at the measures employed in this study, a more consistent relationship took place only between Gf and complex executive ability of verbal fluency, while associations with inhibition and flexibility were weak.
  • The results corroborate improved general performance due to superior intelligence, that is, the g effect.
Neal

Relational-frame-theory-and-executive-function-A-behavioral-approach.pdf - 0 views

shared by Neal on 17 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • there is a set of activities that most or all researchers refer to under the rubric of executive function. That set is both fuzzy and broad but does have recognizable outlines. Itincludes "self-regulation, set-maintenance, selective inhibition of verbal and nonverbal responding, cognitive flexibility, planning, prioritizing, and organizing time and space, and output-efficiency" (
  • Executive function involves selecting and later monitoring and revising behavioral strategies, based on task analyses, planning, and reflectivity in decision making
  • Although the tasks vary widely, most of these tests involve an unusual circumstance in which subjects are required to perform actions that conflict systematically with immediate and well-established sources of behavioral regulation.
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  • Although the tasks vary widely, most of these tests involve an unusual circumstance in which subjects are required to perform actions that conflict systematically with immediate and well-established sources of behavioral regulation.
  • In summary, on the basis of the requirements of the kinds of tests used in this area, executive function is not invoked when responses are well-practiced, smooth, or automatic.
  • Given that well-practiced sources of behavioral control do not work, .subjects must either derive new rules that work or they must follow rules given by the experimenter and override alternative sources of behavioral control.
  • Given that well-practiced sources of behavioral control do not work, .subjects must either derive new rules that work or they must follow rules given by the experimenter and override alternative sources of behavioral control.
  • According to this way of looking at tests of executive function, what is at issue is the ability to derive, apply, or actually follow verbal rules when they are in
  • According to this way of looking at tests of executive function, what is at issue is the ability to derive, apply, or actually follow verbal rules when they are in
  • conflict with other verbal or nonverbal sources of behavior.
  • conflict with other verbal or nonverbal sources of behavior.
  • he flexibility and effectiveness of verbal regulation,
  • as distinct from the adequacy of the existing set of verbal relations (i.e., the verbal "knowledge base") per se.
  • verbal behavior is viewed as the major substantive process in complex human behavior.
  • Rules appear to be one way that humans reduce the tendency to respond automatically to immediate contingencies. These findings ultimately led behavior analysts to investigate the role of verbal rules in the differences found between humans and nonhumans.
  • There are three derived relations said to be characteristic of stimulus equivalence (Sidman & Tailby, 1982): reflexivity (e.g., Al = AI); 2) symmetry (e.g., if Al pick Bl is trained, then Bl pick Al is derived); and 3) transitivity (e.g., if Al pick Bl, and Bl pick Cl are trained, then given Al pick Cl is derived and vice versa). Stimulus equivalence has been shown with a wide variety of human subjects, using a wide variety of stimulus materials
  • Why would such a general behavioral class form? Much as with the behavioral account of generalized imitation (Baer, Peterson, & Sherman, 1967; Gewirtz & Stengle, 1968), we need only suppose that training with many, many exemplars of a class can lead to formation of the class.
  • Relational frame theory suggests that an inherent component of verbal behavior, whether from the point of view of the speaker or the listener, is the learned derivation of stimulus relations based on contextual cues to do so, and not merely on the formal properties of the related events
  • Relational frames have three defining properties.
  • Following arule requires two additional events: the transformation of stimulus functions in terms of the underlying network of stimulus relations, and contingencies that support activity with regard to these transformed functions. A failure in either process can mean a failure in verbal regulation.
  • Several rules may be reflectively considered. The person may "decide" what to do. In this case, several rules that are available by virtue of their relation to verbal categories in the environment are examined by applying an if-then relational frame to them.
  • Rule following is more likely if the consequences are psychologically present, because having those functions verbally present is a motivative augmental (Hayes & Ju, 1993).
  • rule flexibility should increase when the person has ready alternatives to an existing rule.
  • The rule should be tied to clear and immediately measurable outcomes and be sufficiently specific that the rule follower can know when it is not working.
  • rules that emphasize strategies, rather than specific topographies of behavior, are likely to be followed more flexibly.
  • Our line of thinking also suggests that pliance usually helps establish tracking, which helps establish augmenting.
  • According to our way of looking at executive function, what is at issue is the ability to derive, apply, or actually follow verbal rules in conflict with other verbal or nonverbal behavior.
  • To say it another way, there has been a tendency to stay "in the head" and to de-emphasize the direct behavioral effects of verbal abilities. Executive function challenges that tendency, because it is all about the connection between human verbal abilities and actual behavioral regulation.
  • Whether or not the relational frame approach turns out to be useful, behavioral psychologists are used to thinking about events functionally and, as a result, have something important to contribute to the development of our understanding of this area.
Neal

How similar are fluid cognition and general intelligence? A developmental neuroscience ... - 1 views

shared by Neal on 15 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • Overall, the available evidence suggests that fluid cognition is an aspect of cognitive functioning that can be under considerable environmental influence both cumulatively over time and interactively within context in a way that indicates it to be a highly salient influence on behavior, but one that is distinct from general intelligence, psychometrically defined.
  • A third source of evidence is neuropsychological and concerns the extent to which cognitive impairments in identified developmental disorders are consistent with a pattern of dissociation between fluid cognitive functions and general intelligence.
  • Fluid cognitive functioning can be thought of as allpurpose cognitive processing not necessarily associated with any specific content domain and as involving the active or effortful maintenance of information, whether verbal or visual-spatial in working memory for purposes of planning and executing goal directed behavior (Baddeley 1986; Kane & Engle 2002).
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  • As a consequence, fluid functioning involves the inhibition of irrelevant, competing, or prepotent information likely to interfere with information maintenance and response execution and the alternate shifting and sustaining of attention important for organizing and executing sequential steps or actions.
  • Furthermore, fluid functioning is for the most part distinguishable from cognitive functioning associated with previously acquired knowledge available in long-term store, referred to as crystallized intelligence (gC).
  • As a unitary entity, however, fluid function has been described in the psychological literature under a variety of terms, including executive function, executive attention, effortful control, and working memory capacity.
  • By demonstrating increasing PFC activation with parametric increase in the working memory load or cognitive control demand of tasks performed during imaging, these studies have linked the PFC to fluid cognition
  • the term fluid cognitive functioning is utilized as a primary descriptor for these integrated aspects of cognition and is used interchangeably to some extent with the terms working memory and executive function.
  • PFC activation in response to diverse tasks has indicated that the integration of information in working memory, such as verbal and spatial information, or maintenance of information in working memory while executing subsidiary tasks (i.e., cognitive control functions that would seem to be the hallmark of general intelligence), is associated with greater PFC activation than that associated with either task on its own
  • At the very least, the analysis clearly lends itself to the conclusion that intelligence tests are not measurement invariant between cohorts and that, while some increase in general intelligence appears to have occurred, change associated with rising mean IQ is, by and large, subtest specific.
  • Overall, evidence for relations between areas of the PFC and ACC and specific aspects of cognition and emotion suggest that a variety of influences, particularly those associated with emotional arousal and the stress response, may impact fluid cognitive functioning and its apparent similarity to general intelligence.
  • While most explanations for rising mean IQ tend to be underspecified on this point (i.e., general increases in parenting skill, education, or nutrition), others that more directly address the types of skills tested for in measures of fluid intelligence (such as increased visual-spatial complexity or selective changes in specific aspects of education associated with fluidskills development) are perhaps more likely to be shown to account for the phenomenon (Dickens & Flynn 2001b; Williams 1998).
  • Further examination of the deficit displayed on measures of fluid IQ in patients with frontal lesions but intact IQ as assessed by the WAIS indicates that performance is dramatically impaired by the requirement of holding multiple relations in mind simultaneously when attempting to solve problems adapted from Raven’s matrices test. Individuals with prefrontal damage exhibit no deficits on problems whose solution requires holding in mind no relations or only one relation, but exhibit a near inability to solve problems involving two or more relations
  • The study of fluid function under the label of EF in children, however, is a rapidly growing area of research in which the definition of EF employed is essentially identical to that used by individuals studying working memory and intelligence in adults. Specifically, when cognitive researchers working with child populations define EF as the maintenance of an appropriate problem-solving set involving mental representation of a given task and goal state within a limited-capacity central processing system (Welsh & Pennington 1988), they are describing cognitive processes that are being studied under the name of working memory in adults (e.g., Carpenter et al. 1990; Conway et al. 2002; Prabhakaran et al. 1997; 2000).
Neal

Why is executive function important for teenagers? - 0 views

  • There is a set of mental skills that’s one of the best predictors of a successful life in virtually every way you can measure success. Yet most people don’t even know it exists.
  • It’s called executive function. Usually abbreviated EF, executive function plays a big part in mental health, teaching, parenting – even employment - virtually the entire behavioral food chain of human experience.
  • I define executive function as “the ability to get things done - and not punch someone in the nose while doing it.” Executive function is a set of mental skills that help you get things done. It’s located in the frontal lobe of the brain, and can help you manage time, pay attention, multitask, and more. It’s also involved in a teen’s mental health, which we know is critically important to understand,
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  • and responsiveness
  • A kid’s EF score is the only statistic that predicts their future college GPA better than chance. High-EF kids get better-paying jobs when they leave school, enjoy more stable marriages, and work better in teams.
  • Scientists have been looking at behaviors underlying these disorders for decades. They’ve uncovered a stunning finding, which underscores the importance of EF. The vast majority of mental health issues are problems in executive function.
  • blend of demandingness
  • Get your child involved in regular aerobic exercise. Especially if the activity also engages the mind (like an organized sport, as opposed to just running).
  • Make sure your child gets enough sleep. No all-nighters, and no “blue light” exposure on screens in the late evenings, especially before bed. Sleep feeds the brain, and kids certainly need it to build their EF.
  • Help your child eat the right foods. The so-called Mediterranean diet (lots of fruits and vegetables, white meat, and if there’s grease, it needs to be olive oil) can improve working memory, a vital component of EF.
  • Practice mindfulness meditation—and help your child to do the same. But do the right kind. The protocol originally designed by Jon Kabat-Zinn can change EF in as little as 8 weeks.
Neal

Effects of physical activity interventions on cognitive and academic performance in chi... - 1 views

shared by Neal on 15 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • it is critical to advance our understanding of opportunities that have the potential to positively influence brain development.
  • less is known about the potential effects of PA on cognitive and academic performance.
  • PA is positively associated with cognition and with structural and functional brain health and a neutral association with academic performance for children. 12 Not all of these reviews were systematic,
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  • Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain posited PA-related effects on cognitive and academic performance. Regular PA alters neurogenesis and angiogenesis and enhances central nervous system metabolism. 20 Furthermore, it
  • has been suggested that regular PA increases the availability of certain growth factors, such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). All these systems and factors are involved with the maintenance and plasticity of the structure and function of the brain, 20 21 and thus with learning and memory
  • The majority of the studies included in the current review assessed the effects of PA in children aged 6–12 years. Seven studies reported children aged 5 years or younger, 44 51 52 64 77 79 80 and 13 studies included youths (ie, older than 12 years) in their studies. 37 39 43
  • The shortest intervention duration was 1 week, 54 62 79 and the longest spanned a period of 9 years.
  • Stratifying the evidence synthesis at the level of outcome for academic performance we conclude that there is strong evidence for beneficial effects of PA on maths performance (beneficial effects on 86% of the outcomes), but inconclusive evidence for language performance (beneficial effect on 27% of the outcomes).
    • Neal
       
      Is one more EF and/or WM dependent than the other? Is this evidence for PA and FI but not PA and CI?
  • The majority of the intervention studies implemented PA sessions of at least 30 min (n=41).
  • Many studies applied interventions that were delivered 5 days a week (n=28). The lowest frequency was 1 43 44 and the highest frequency was 6 days per week. 36 65 Most studies (n=34) assessed the effects of PA consisting primarily of aerobic exercise.
  • nine studies implemented more cognitively engaging PA, consisting of either coordinative exercise, 58 71 72 86 skill-based training, 69 motor skills training, 35 gesturing physical exercise, 52 perceptual motor training, 64 and motor-enriched learning activities. 73
  • Six studies assessed the effects of motor demanding or cognitively engaging activities. 31 43 44 53 54 70 Three of these studies implemented PA games specifically tailored to challenge core executive functions in a gross-motor fashion. 43 44 54 The majority of studies implemented separate PA sessions, whereas 14 studies delivered physically active academic lessons. 42 48 51 62 66 77–80 83 85 87
  • The intervention also showed small significant beneficial effects on attentional performance and impulse control after 1and 2 years, which were not sustained into the third year. After 9 years, children in the intervention group had significantly higher qualification scores for upper school
    • Neal
       
      A change in trajectory?
  • Most studies reporting intervention effects on cognitive performance, assessed domains of executive functions (in particular inhibition, working memory , updating, attention, task switching, and planning), speed of information processing, fluid and crystallised intelligence.
  • In particular, enhanced performance accuracy and increased P3 amplitude were observed in tasks requiring higher amounts of attention, inhibition and cognitive flexibility . T asks requiring less executive control were unaffected by the FITKids intervention.
    • Neal
       
      Perhaps it is the amount of EF involvolved in the outcome measure that determinew whentehr PA is effective>
  • Subramanian et al 65 reported beneficial effects of structured PA versus unstructured physical and creative sedentary activities in 12- to 17-year-olds on tasks measuring attention, concentration, non-verbal fluency , and mental flexibility
  • Although we found no evidence for beneficial effects on cognitive performance or overall academic performance, we found strong evidence for beneficial effects of PA on maths performance.
  • Cognitive/academic performance can theoretically improve through biological or psychosocial pathways, 20 and an interplay between the two is possible and probable.
  • beneficial effects on maths performance assessed intervention programmes with a minimal frequency of three sessions per week and a minimal programme duration of two school years.
  • The study conclusions suggested that their findings provided evidence for a more efficient use of neural resources underlying executive functions after participation in PA interventions, reflected in enhanced neural activity in regions supporting attention and working memory functions. 49
  • PA intervention may result in a more adult-like recruitment of prefrontal brain regions, which is important for many aspects of executive functions.
  • To establish the effect of combining academic content and PA, there should be at least three groups: (a) the intervention group that combines PA with academic content; (b) the non-active control group that only receives the same academic content as the intervention group, but without PA; (c) the active control group that only receives the PA component.
  • One high-quality study 54 suggested larger effects of coordinative or perceptual– motor forms of exercise on cognitive performance, particularly on executive functions, than aerobic exercise.
  • V ariability of practice that is central to coordination and perceptual–motor exercise training, for example, may be an interface between motor and cognitive development promotion. 9
  • Regarding moderators, it is likely that some children may benefit more from additional PA such as children with low PA levels or overweight children.
  • Interrupting and limiting sedentary time with standing desks or short activity bouts may be more feasible in the school setting and, therefore, a promising form of intervention.
  • Based on 11 high-quality intervention studies, we found inconclusive evidence of a beneficial effect of PA interventions on cognitive and overall academic performance in children. However, based on academic outcomes related to mathematics, we found strong evidence for beneficial effects of PA.
Neal

Development of the adolescent brain: implications for executive function and social cog... - 0 views

  • Adolescence is a time of considerable development at the level of behaviour, cognition and the brain. This article reviews histological and brain imaging studies that have demonstrated specific changes in neural architecture during puberty and adolescence, outlining trajectories of grey and white matter development. The implications of brain development for executive functions and social cognition during puberty and adolescence are discussed. Changes at the level of the brain and cognition may map onto behaviours commonly associated with adolescence. Finally, possible applications for education and social policy are briefly considered.
  • Recent MRI studies indicate that the time at which the brain reaches maturity may be much later than the end of adolescence. One such study of participants aged between 7 and 30 revealed that the loss of grey matter in the frontal cortex accelerated during adulthood between the early 20s and up to the age of 30 (Sowell et al., 2001).
  • The non‐linear decrease in grey matter was concomitant with a linear increase in white matter, consistent with earlier MRI data and with post‐mortem studies.
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  • post‐mortem cellular studies of human brains have revealed an extended period of development, in particular in the frontal and parietal cortices.
  • The term executive function is used to describe the capacity that allows us to control and coordinate our thoughts and behaviour (Luria, 1966; Shallice, 1982).
  • These skills include selective attention, decision‐making, voluntary response inhibition and working memory. Each of these executive functions has a role in cognitive control, for example filtering out unimportant information, holding in mind a plan to carry out in the future and inhibiting impulses.
  • Behavioural studies show that performance of adolescents on tasks including inhibitory control (Leon‐Carrion, Garcia‐Orza, & Perez‐Santamaria, 2004; Luna, Garver, Urban, Lazar, & Sweeney, 2004a), processing speed (Luna et al., 2004a), working memory and decision‐making (Luciana, Conklin, Cooper, & Yarger, 2005; Hooper, Luciana, Conklin, & Yarger, 2004) continues to develop during adolescence.
  • Different aspects of executive function, therefore, may have different developmental trajectories.
  • prospective memory continues to develop during adolescence, in line with the notion of frontal maturation in the brain. It is possible that the lack of improvement in performance between the 10‐ and 14‐year‐olds was related to their pubertal status.
  • The results suggest that there is a dip in performance on this kind of task at the onset of puberty.
  • The researchers linked this pubertal dip in performance to the proliferation of synapses that occurs at the onset of puberty.
  • the sudden proliferation of synapses that occurs at puberty results in a perturbation of cognitive performance.
  • In addition to neural development, there are major changes in hormones at puberty. While it is impossible to tease apart all of the important influences on the social and emotional behaviour of adolescents, significant neural development and hormonal changes are likely to influence social cognition.
  • Perspective taking is the ability to take on the viewpoint of another person. The ability to take another's perspective is crucial for successful social communication.
  • Functional neuroimaging studies have revealed that the parietal and frontal cortices are associated with making the distinction between 1PP and 3PP at the motor (Ruby & Decety, 2001), visuo‐spatial, (Vogeley et al., 2004), conceptual (Ruby & Decety, 2003) and emotional (Ruby & Decety, 2004) level.
  • It is proposed that ‘mirror neurons’ that fire when an agent both performs an action or observes another person performing the action provide a basis for integrating perceptual, motor and social functions (see Rizzolatti, Fogassi, & Gallese, 2001 for review).
  • Several neuroimaging studies have implicated the inferior parietal cortex in the distinction between the self and others at the sensorimotor level (Blakemore, Wolpert, & Frith, 1998; Farrer & Frith, 2002; Ruby & Decety, 2001).
  • hese data suggest that development of social perspective taking undergoes a perturbation during puberty in parallel with the discontinuous processes of brain maturation.
  • Cognitive processes that depend on the prefrontal cortex might undergo a perturbation at puberty due to the synaptic reorganisation that occurs at this time.
  • The greater and more diffuse activity in the dorsal region of the prefrontal cortex in children suggests that there is a heavier dependence on this region in children compared with in adults. The researchers suggested that during adolescence, the network recruited for this task is modified until adulthood, at which stage activation of a smaller, more focal region of the prefrontal cortex is used to perform the same task.
  • Thus, reaction times and imaging data together suggest that in children, an immature stage of the brain where excess synapses, possibly as a result of a burst of proliferation, accounts for the poorer performance and extensive and less efficient frontal activation. A pruned and more myelinated adult brain could explain the faster reaction times and focal activation of the frontal cortex, the area associated with generativity (Frith, Friston, Liddle, & Frackowiak, 1991) and the inhibitory response (Konishi et al., 1999).
  • One possibility is that extensive activation in children is a compensatory strategy used while the brain is less efficient in integrating executive functions.
  • To explain risky behaviour commonly associated with adolescence, the authors postulated that adolescents are driven to seek more extreme incentives to compensate for low recruitment of motivational brain circuitry.
  • It was proposed that when confronted with a risky scenario, adults’ relatively efficient responses were driven by mental images of possible outcomes and the visceral response to those images, in line with the somatic marker hypothesis (Damasio, 1996). However, adolescents relied more on reasoning capacities and therefore activated the DLPFC, hence the relatively effortful responses compared to adults.
  • Neural plasticity of the developing brain may underpin different propensities for learning new skills, such as problem solving, at different stages of the life cycle.
Neal

Executive Dysfunction Among Children With Reading Comprehension Deficits - 0 views

  • Emerging research supports the contribution of executive function (EF) to reading comprehension; however, a unique pattern has not been established for children who demonstrate comprehension difficulties despite average word recognition ability (specific reading comprehension deficit; S-RCD). To identify particular EF components on which children with S-RCD struggle, a range of EF skills was compared among 86 children, ages 10 to 14, grouped by word reading and comprehension abilities: 24 average readers, 44 with word recognition deficits (WRD), and 18 S-RCD.
  • An exploratory principal components analysis of EF tests identified three latent factors, used in subsequent group comparisons: Planning/Spatial Working Memory, Verbal Working Memory, and Response Inhibition.
  • The WRD group exhibited deficits (relative to controls) on Verbal Working Memory and Inhibition factors; S-RCD children performed more poorly than controls on the Planning factor. Further analyses suggested the WRD group’s poor performance on EF factors was a by-product of core deficits linked to WRD (after controlling for phonological processing, this group no longer showed EF deficits)
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  • In contrast, the S-RCD group’s poor performance on the planning component remained significant after controlling for phonological processing. Findings suggest reading comprehension difficulties are linked to executive dysfunction; in particular, poor strategic planning/organizing may lead to reading comprehension problems.
  • Executive Functions—Working Memory Sentence Span (Swanson, Cochran, & Ewers, 1989; based on Daneman & Carpenter, 1980) On this test, the examiner reads a set of sentences and asks a question about one of them. The child answers and then remembers the last word of each sentence. The number of sentences increases by one sentence with each set. The score for total number of words recalled was used in analyses.Spatial Span (WISC-III–Process Instrument; WISC-III-PI; Kaplan, Fein, Kramer, Delis, & Morris, 1999) This measure uses a spatial span board, upon which 10 blue cubes are mounted in a random order. The researcher taps cubes (one cube per second) in a specified sequence, and the child is asked to replicate the sequence, both forward and backward. Scaled scores from the Backward Span trial were used in analyses.Digit Span (WISC-IV; Wechsler, 2003) Children are asked to repeat aurally presented digit strings, both forward and backward. Scaled scores from the Backward Span trial were used in analyses.
  • Executive Functions—Planning, Organization, Self-Monitoring Elithorn Mazes (WISC-III-PI; Kaplan et al., 1999) This measure requires the child to examine a visually presented maze and choose a single path that passes through circles within a “lattice” of lines in an inverted triangular structure, without backtracking. The measure provides information about strategic planning and response organization skills. Scaled scores were used in analyses.Trail Making (Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System; D-KEFS; Delis, Kaplan, & Kramer, 2001) The entire D-KEFS Trail Making Test was administered; however, scaled scores from Trial 4: Number/Letter Sequencing, for which the participant was required to switch back and forth between connecting numbers and letters in sequence, were used in analyses.Tower (D-KEFS; Delis et al., 2001) The Total Achievement Score from the Tower Test, a measure of a novel problem solving that requires planning and organization, was also administered. For this task, participants must move disks varying in size across three pegs to build a designated tower using the fewest number of moves possible.
  • Executive Functions—Response Inhibition
  • Conflicting motor response
  • Contralateral motor response
Neal

Executive function in children with ADHD. - 0 views

  • Luria's concept of three functional units (blocks) of the brain (Luria, 1973) permits an understanding of the many problems associated with abnormal child development. The last unit that is maturated is the brain, providing the control and voluntary regulation of activities, later called executive function. The voluntary regulation of mental activity includes the following: (i) an objective setting, in accordance with motivation and the purpose of actual or planned activity, (ii) planning a program and the best ways to achieve a goal, (iii) monitoring the implementation of the program and the timely correction of inadequate actions and associations, and (iv) comparisons of objectives with intermediate and final results.
  • Broadly defined, executive function refers to a complex set of cognitive abilities that underlie adaptive, goal-directed behaviors and enable individuals to override more automatic or established thoughts and responses (Garon, Bryson, & Smith, 2008; Diamond, 2013). At a more fine-grained level, a set of cognitive control skills (e.g., attention, inhibitory control, self-monitoring, and flexibility) is defined as specific interrelated information-processing abilities that are involved in the control and coordination of information in the service of goal-directed actions and has been studied in the cognitive development literature
Neal

Not All Executive Functions Are Related to Intelligence.pdf - 1 views

shared by Neal on 15 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • Duncan et al. found that frontal patients did show impaired intelligence on measures of Gf, such as Raven’s Progressive Matrices Test. Moreover, Duncan, Emslie, Williams, Johnson, and Freer (1996) found that executive problems such as neglecting to carry out goals were related to Gf in both normal adults and frontal lobe patients.
  • the distinction between Gf and Gc may be less important for understanding the relations between EFs and intelligence in populations with no frontal degradation. Because knowledge acquisition, the result of which is Gc, may depend partly on Gf (Carroll, 1993), and because there is no brain damage to selectively impair one type of intelligence, Gf and Gc may both be related to EFs in normal young adults.
  • Given that general intelligence is most closely associated with complex reasoning and problem-solving tasks (Carroll, 1993), and hence is ‘‘often taken to concern the highest-level ‘executive’ or ‘supervisory’ functions of cognition’’ (Duncan et al., 1996, p. 258), one might posit that it would relate, possibly equally, to all EFs.
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  • Because working memory tests involve updating to maintain relevant information in the presence of interference, the finding that intelligence is related to working memory capacity makes it likely that intelligence is related to updating.
  • relations between updating and intelligence measures were undiminished, but the relations between inhibiting and intelligence and between shifting and intelligence were no longer significant.
  • Moreover, from the CFA to the SEM with Gf and Gc, the Gf-Gc correlation dropped 73%, indicating that the EFs, particularly updating, accounted for a significant portion (though not all) of the Gf-Gc correlation.
  • Note that 49% to 57% of the variances in the intelligence measures were unexplained by the EFs, reflecting the fact that EFs, though important correlates of intelligence, are not the only ones.
  • Gf may not necessarily be more strongly associated with EFs than are other measures of intelligence in young adults, for whom Gf likely strongly influences knowledge acquisition (the result of which is Gc). However, in populations with reduced frontal integrity, such as older adults and frontal lobe patients, one might expect Gf to show more EF involvement than Gc or WAIS IQ, because Gc may be relatively unaffected by frontally related EF dysfunction (Duncan et al., 1995).
  • These three EFs differentially relate to intelligence in normal young adults, with updating being the EF most closely related to intelligence.
  • the three intelligence measures shared 41% to 48% of their variances with updating,
  • SEMs revealed that when inter-EF correlations were considered, the
  • These results highlight the importance of updating abilities in current conceptions of intelligence.
  • Updating and working memory capacity have been described as abilities that involve attentional control to maintain relevant information (including task goals) in the face of interference, delete this information when it becomes irrelevant, and replace it with new information
  • the current finding that not all EFs are related to psychometric intelligence suggests that traditional measures of intelligence are missing some fundamental supervisory functions.
  • a definition of intelligence articulated by Binet: ‘‘[It] consists of two chief processes: First to perceive the external world, and then to reinstate the perceptions in memory, to rework them, and to think about them’’ (translation by Carroll, 1993, p. 35).
  • when frontal lobe functioning is generally compromised, multiple EFs may be affected, leading to higher inter-EF correlations. These higher correlations could then result in generally higher EF-intelligence correlations.
  • Indeed, Salthouse et al. (2003), examining an aging sample, found substantially higher inhibiting-updating (.71), inhibiting-Gf (.73), and updating-Gf correlations (.93) than those found here.
    • Neal
       
      These relationships are fluid across the lifespan.
  • Sternberg (1988) defined intelligence as ‘‘mental self-management’’ (p. 72) needed to adapt, select, and shape the environment, citing lack of impulse control as one cause of self-management failures.
  •  
    Updating (here) plus executive attention (others). Perhaps same thing???
Neal

Short‐term Sahaja Yoga meditation training modulates brain structure and spon... - 0 views

  • While cross‐sectional studies have shown neural changes in long‐term meditators, they might be confounded by self‐selection and potential baseline differences between meditators and non meditators. Prospective longitudinal studies of the effects of meditation in naïve subjects are more conclusive with respect to causal inferences, but related evidence is so far limited.
  • Compared with 30 control subjects, the participants to meditation training showed increased gray matter density and changes in the coherence of intrinsic brain activity in two adjacent regions of the right inferior frontal gyrus encompassing the anterior component of the executive control network. Both these measures correlated with self‐reported well‐being scores in the meditation group.
  • The significant impact of a brief meditation training on brain regions associated with attention, self‐control, and self‐awareness may reflect the engagement of cognitive control skills in searching for a state of mental silence, a distinctive feature of Sahaja Yoga meditation. The manifold implications of these findings involve both managerial and rehabilitative settings concerned with well‐being and emotional state in normal and pathological conditions.
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  • Subjects participating in the meditation intervention displayed a significant improvement in self‐perceived general well‐being after training. In addition, compared with control subjects they also showed a significant change in brain structure and intrinsic activity in inferior fronto‐insular regions associated with executive control, and previously highlighted by cross‐sectional studies on the neural effects of long‐term SY meditation (Hernandez et al., 2015).
  • A significant time‐by‐group interaction on spectral power highlighted, in meditators vs controls, a training‐related remodeling of the contribution of slow frequencies in the anterior component of the fronto‐parietal “executive control” network.
  • involved in goal‐directed behavior
  • This set of regions, which is commonly recruited by tasks requiring controlled information processing (Dosenbach et al., 2007), has been recently proposed as a “superordinate” cognitive control network, recruited across different executive domains including flexibility, working memory, initiation, and inhibition (Niendam et al., 2012).
  • This hypothesis fits with neuroimaging evidence on other types of short‐term meditation interventions, sharing with the SY meditation an open monitoring approach aiming to develop the capacity for mindfulness (i.e., awareness of present‐moment experiences with a compassionate, non judgmental, stance). Across different studies, such interventions resulted in stronger intensity of activation (Holzel et al., 2011) and efficiency (Xue, Tang, & Posner, 2011) in functional networks involving the dACC, possibly reflecting higher cognitive control and improved suppression of distracting events
  • our results suggest a potential broad impact of meditative practice on neural organization, in turn reflecting on other outcomes related to health and well‐being (Muehsam et al., 2017).
  • General well‐being
  • Fatigue
  • Dissatisfaction
  • The SY meditation training consisted of four one‐hour sessions per week over 4 consecutive weeks, that is, a total of 16 hr.
  • No other commitments, including home practice, were required.
Neal

The role of prefrontal cortex in working-memory capacity, executive attention, and gene... - 0 views

  • Our critical review confirms the prevalent view that dorsolateral PFC circuitry is critical to executive-attention functions. Moreover, although the dorsolateral PFC is but one critical structure in a network of anterior and posterior “attention control” areas, it does have a unique executiveattention role in actively maintaining access to stimulus representations and goals in interference-rich contexts. Our review suggests the utility of an executive-attention framework for guiding future research on both PFC function and cognitive control.
Neal

Specificity of Executive Functioning and Processing Speed Problems in Common Psychopath... - 1 views

  • Granular approaches are likely to be most productive for linking EF to psychopathology, whereas response speed has underutilized potential as an endophenotype for psychopathology liability. Results are discussed in terms of an integrated conceptualization of neuropsychological processes and putative neural systems involved in general and specific aspects of psychopathology.
  • Contemporary definitions emphasize a set of at least partially independent top-down functions that support goal-directed action (Marie T. Banich, 2009; Blair, Raver, & Finegood, 2016; Diamond, 2013; Friedman & Miyake, 2016; Miyake et al., 2000) as well as complex cognition (Barkley, 1997; Diamond, 2013). EF are invoked when automatized routines will not work or are not possible (e.g., novel situations).
  • (1) set-shifting (and maintenance), (2) interference control, (3) response inhibition, and (4) working memory.
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  • While not always included in older EF models, there is considerable contemporary interest in response consistency/variability (Karalunas, Geurts, Konrad, Bender, & Nigg, 2014), which may be a correlate of either EF or Speed. We included it and determined empirically its association with latent variables for our main constructs.
  • The unity and diversity of EF processes provides the opportunity to examine EF from a holistic perspective, with a focus on the combined measurement of EF, as well as from a component perspective.
  • cognitive retraining
  • Better understanding of how and when such interventions should be considered relies on clarifying how and in which respects executive functioning and slow processing speed relate to psychopathology at different levels of analysis and granularity.
  • Separating Speed from efficiency of EF is an important aspect of evaluating shared phenotypes for cognition (Salthouse, 1996) and thus for psychopathology.
  • studies of EF generally fail to consider processing speed. This is notable because hierarchal models of human cognition (e.g.(Botvinick, 2008) suggest that lower order processes, such a processing speed, inform higher order processes, such as EF.
  • It has been hypothesized that Speed may underlie EF
  • One possibility, in fact, is that Speed accounts for some of the EF effects, because EF measures are often confounded with Speed. We consider that by modeling EF and Speed simultaneously in some models. Three other hypotheses can be proposed.
  • The first model, here termed the “Specificity model,” proposes that different disorders are associated with different types of EF deficits.
  • The second, “Severity model,” proposes that EF or Speed impairment are related nonspecifically to overall severity of psychopathology rather than a specific form of psychopathology.
  • The third, “Dimension” model, proposes that EF or Speed deficits are related to one or more shared, underlying psychopathology liability dimensions rather than specific disorders.
  • Part A is generally recognized as a measure of output speed, while part B entails additional demands on scanning and motor speed in addition to switching; however it’s validity in relation to other switching measures is recognized
  • We refer to it as working memory for simplicity, recognizing its complexity.
Neal

City Research Online - The relationship between executive functions and motor coordinat... - 0 views

shared by Neal on 15 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • The relationship between executive functions and motor coordination: longitudinal impact on academic achievement and language
  • Developmental gains in EFs were similar between groups, although a gap between children with poor motor skills and TD children on nonverbal EFs persisted. Specifically, children with DCD performed significantly more poorly than TD children on all nonverbal EF tasks and verbal fluency tasks at both time points; and children with MD but no diagnosis showed persistent EF difficulties in nonverbal tasks of working memory and fluency. Both groups demonstrated EF difficulties over two years, which may impact on activities of daily living and academic achievement, in addition to their motor deficit.
  • Nonverbal EF did not predict performance in any of the academic achievement tasks, whereas verbal EF was a significant predictor of mathematical ability.
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  • Specifically, the interaction between motor coordination and EF had significant effects on language, as the association between EF and language was positive and significant at low and moderate levels of motor skills, but not at high levels of motor skills.
  • In conclusion, in this thesis interactions between EF and motor coordination produced complex effects on academic and language outcomes.
Neal

Technological aids for the rehabilitation of memory and executive functioning in childr... - 0 views

  • This review provides low‐quality evidence for the use of technology‐based interventions in the rehabilitation of executive functions and memory for children and adolescents with TBI. As all of the included studies contained relatively small numbers of participants (12 to 120), our findings should be interpreted with caution. The involvement of a clinician or therapist, rather than use of the technology, may have led to the success of these interventions. Future research should seek to replicate these findings with larger samples, in other regions, using ecologically valid outcome measures, and reduced clinician involvement.
Neal

Heart Rate Variability and Cognitive Function: A Systematic Review - 0 views

  • The results highlight the influence of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in cognitive functioning. However, the marked interest facing toward a specific domain, i.e., the executive functions, and the relatively small number of the studies on this topic do not allow understanding better this relationship. Despite these limits, HRV could be considered a promising early biomarker of cognitive impairment in populations without dementia or stroke. This index should be evaluated within a preventative perspective to minimize the risk of developing cognitive impairment.
Neal

Heart Rate Variability and Cognitive Function: A Systematic Review. - PubMed - NCBI - 0 views

  • The results highlight the influence of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in cognitive functioning. However, the marked interest facing toward a specific domain, i.e., the executive functions, and the relatively small number of the studies on this topic do not allow understanding better this relationship. Despite these limits, HRV could be considered a promising early biomarker of cognitive impairment in populations without dementia or stroke. This index should be evaluated within a preventative perspective to minimize the risk of developing cognitive impairment.
Neal

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (Adhd), Working Memory and Hyperactivity: an E... - 0 views

shared by Neal on 15 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • Latent variable analysis was used to determine that activity level associated with the central executive was significantly greater in the ADHD group.
  • This study is the first to demonstrate a functional relationship between ADHD-related activity and working memory demands, particularly on the central executive, in adults. Results are consistent with findings in children and refute the notion that excessive activity is a ubiquitous feature of ADHD unrelated to task demands.
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