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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.

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.

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.

Salthouse (2005) has called for caution in using executive function as though it represents a construct that is distinct from other cognitive dimensions.

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).

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.

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.

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).

From this perspective, EF cover “how” an individual does something, while cognitive

functions cover “what and how much” an individual is capable of.

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).

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.

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.

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).

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)

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

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.

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

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)

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

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.