Zelazo – introduction to executive functions

Well, executive function is a term that overlaps considerably with self-regulation. But it’s a neuropsychological term that is used to refer specifically to those psychological processes that are involved in the more deliberate top-down, so to speak, aspects of self-regulation. So, when people use the term executive function, generally speaking they’re talking about the processes that are involved in the deliberate self-regulation of behaviour. And more specifically they tend to refer to processes including cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, and working memory, or keeping something in mind in order to use it in kind of a deliberate fashion to guide your behaviour. 

Cognitive flexibility refers to the ability to think flexibly about a particular thing. To view, it for example, from multiple perspectives simultaneously. And it’s manifested in interpersonal interactions, for example when understand that I think one way about something but somebody else thinks differently about it. And it’s absolutely essential for flexible problem solving to be able to re-imagine, for example, an alternative way of achieving the same goal. 

Inhibitory control refers to the ability to suppress a tendency simply to repeat whatever one has done in the past. And one may need to inhibit a particular motor response—a kind of overlearned behavioural routine, but also to inhibit attention to distracting or irrelevant information. And then working memory is typically used, the term is used to typically describe not just keeping something in mind, but also being able to turn it around in your mind, and manipulate it in addition to just maintaining information.