An umbrella term for the set of (neuro-) cognitive processes underlying flexible goal-directed responses to novel or complex situations. Such situations may involve: 1. planning and decision making, 2. error correction or troubleshooting, 3. initiation of novel sequences of actions, 4. danger or technical difficulty, or 5. need to overcome a strong habitual response. For some, the term has no precise definition, but broadly it refers to processes through which perceptual information or information in memory is used in the guidance of action (i.e., the maintenance of an appropriate problem-solving set for the attainment of a future goal). EF is closely related to the concept of working memory, and the neural substrate supporting the function is generally recognised as dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Developmentally, EF shows improvements in the ability to inhibit unwanted responses, ability to deal with distractions, mental fluency, ability to organize and reconstruct increasing amounts of information, and planning and the formulation of strategies for dealing with problem-solving. Such core features of EF do not develop sequentially, but rather in parallel. In recent years, a distinction has been made between ‘cool’ and ‘hot’ executive functions. The cool variety refer to control processes prompted by abstract,de-contextualized problems in the absence of affective or motivational components. while the hot counterpart involves those morelikely to be prompted by problems that involve the regulation of affect andmotivation, as when one is required to reappraise the motivational significanceof a stimulus. Historically, Alexander R. Luria (1902-1977) devised the term ‘executive function’ to cater for what he called ‘higher order mental ability’ concerned with self-directed behaviors.
See Anterior cingulate gyrus, Attentional flexibility, Executive attention, Diffusion tensor imaging, Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), Executive attention, Go/no go test, Inhibitory control, Motor inhibition, Perception-action coupling, Praxis, Prefrontal cortex (PFC), Prefrontal-frontal-striatal loops, Problem solving, Response inhibition tasks, Stroop test, Trail making test, Tower test, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), Working memory