Executive Cognitive Functioning and
Education
A Presentation to the Stanley Teacher
Preparation Program
January 30, 2014
Overview
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Prefrontal cortex anatomy and connections
What are executive cognitive functions?
Damage to the prefrontal cortex
Research on Executive Functions (EF)
Executive Functioning in School
Strengthening EF
Neuroplasticity
Habits
State and EF
Consider what it takes to be successful/happy:
• Creativity
– New ideas/hypotheses
– Divergent thinking – thinking outside the box for new approaches
• Flexibility
– Seeing an opportunity and seizing it
– Being able to change course/react to change
• Self-control
– Think before you speak or act
– Resist temptation/control impulses
• Discipline
– Make a plan and stick to it
– Focus despite distractions
These are all Executive Cognitive Functions.
Executive Cognitive Functioning
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Initiating, prioritizing, strategizing & sequencing
Regulating alertness, managing time
Working memory
Self-monitoring & self-regulation (insight, error
detection, behavior modification, impulse control)
Focusing and maintaining attention
Flexible response to novel situations
Using intentions to engage in purposeful activity
Managing frustration and regulating emotions
Active problem solving
Capacity to generate information
Anatomy of Executive Functioning
• Many regions of the brain are associated with
executive functioning.
• Primary area is the prefrontal cortex (PFC)
• Other areas affecting/affected by executive ability
include:
– Cerebellum
– Basal ganglia
– Thalamus
Who/Where/What is the Executive?
• The prefrontal cortex is involved in the temporal
organization of behavior.
• The prefrontal area combines working memory
with long-term memory, current behavior, and
both short- and long-term goals.
• These are referred to as the executive
functions.
• But there is no “executive” in the brain, and nothing to regulate
behavior.
• The brain and behavior are both self-organizing systems.
Your prefrontal cortex links information back and forth across other brain regions and has
the vastest neural network and the most reciprocal interconnections with other brain
structures.
“All neural roads eventually lead to the frontal lobes.”
Basic Function of Prefrontal Cortex
• The prefrontal cortex provides cognitive control of
behavior, so the right behavior is selected at the
appropriate time and place.
• The prefrontal cortex plays a major role in an
individual’s ability to regulate his or her behavior.
• When the prefrontal cortex is injured, people can’t
plan, anticipate consequences, initiate
purposeful behavior, inhibit irrelevant
behavior, or monitor themselves.
Damage to the frontal lobe
• Phineas Gage
– Crew foreman for Rutland and Burlington Railroad mid1800’s
– Tamping rod exploded through his eye socket and a
subsequent infection was presumed to destroy much of
his frontal lobe
– While recovery seemed normal, his “personality” was
vastly changed
• Gage is “fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest
profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but
little deference to his fellows…devising many plans of future
operations, which are no sooner arranged than they are
abandoned in turn for others appearing more feasible.”
» - JM Harlow, 1868 (Gage’s physician)
According to V.S. Ramachadran in The
Tell-Tale Brain, the prefrontal cortex affects
“many of the most quintessential attributes
that define human nature: ambition;
empathy; foresight; a complex personality;
a sense of morality; and a sense of dignity
as a human being”.
Predictive Power of Executive Functioning
Walter Mischel’s 1968 Marshmallow Test
In the follow up in the 1980s, the children who participated in the original
research were teenagers. Mischel found that those who were not as good at
delaying gratification were much more likely to have behavioral problems,
both in school and at home. They struggled in stressful situations, often had
trouble paying attention in class and had serious problems with their temper.
The difference between a child who could only wait thirty seconds and a child
who could wait fifteen minutes was that the high-delayer had an SAT score
that was, on average, two hundred and ten points higher than the kid who
couldn’t wait.
Most recent follow up:
Behavioral and neural correlates of delay of gratification 40 years later
B. J. Caseya,1, Leah H. Somervillea, Ian H. Gotlibb, Ozlem Aydukc, Nicholas
T. Franklina, Mary K. Askrend, John Jonidesd, Marc G. Bermand, Nicole L.
Wilsone, Theresa Teslovicha, Gary Gloverf, Vivian Zayasg, Walter Mischel,1,
and Yuichi Shodae,1
10.1073/pnas.1108561108 PNAS August 29, 2011
What Executive Functioning Looks Like for Young
Children
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT7fbayfNBU
Predictive Power of Executive Functioning
Psychol Sci. 2005 Dec;16(12):939-44.
Self-discipline outdoes IQ in predicting academic performance of
adolescents.
Duckworth AL, Seligman ME
Positive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania
Self-discipline of 140 8th grade students measured by self reports, teacher and
parent reports and monetary choice questionnaires in the fall predicted
final grades, school attendance and admittance to competitive HS
program.
Replicated study of 164 8th grade students added a behavioral delay-ofgratification task, a questionnaire on study habits and a group
administered IQ test in addition to the above.
Finding: Self-discipline (as measured in the fall) accounted for more than
twice as much variance as IQ in final grades, HS selection, school
attendance…
Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development
Study
• Followed 1,037 individuals born in 1972-1973 in Dunedin,
New Zealand
• Self-control during first decade of life was measured using
nine measures of self control: observational ratings of
children’s lack of control (ages 3 and 5); parent, teacher
and self-reports of impulsive aggression, hyperactivity,
lack of persistence, inattention and impulsivity (at 5,7,9 &
11 years old)
• Then, as 32-year old adults (with a 96% retention rate),
health, wealth and crime outcomes were assessed by
physical exams, blood tests, personal interviews, record
searches and informant reports.
Design of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study.
Moffitt T E et al. PNAS 2011;108:2693-2698
©2011 by National Academy of Sciences
Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development
Study - Findings
• Children with less self control (i.e., children who were less
persistent, more impulsive and had poorer attention
regulation) 30 years later had:
– Poorer health
– Greater likelihood of alcohol or drug problems
– More financial problems
– More single-parent child rearing
– More criminal convictions
than those with better inhibitory control as young
children (controlling for IQ, gender, social class and
home lives and family circumstances growing up).
Self-control gradient.
Moffitt T E et al. PNAS 2011;108:2693-2698
©2011 by National Academy of Sciences
(From Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University)
Executive Functioning in School
• Without good EF, it can look like a student is not
paying attention or is deliberately not controlling
themselves
• They may: be pulled out of the learning environment;
miss information; fall behind; feel upset; act out…
• They are in a downward spiral
• And consequences become irrelevant to a child who
can’t conceive of them and can’t use impulse control
to avoid them.
Executive Functions can be Trained by
Strengthening Neural Connections
• Scenario 1: Poor EF leads to problems paying attention in class,
completing assignments and inhibiting impulsive behaviors. School is
less fun and the teacher is always getting annoyed with the student and
complying with school demands is hard. The teacher comes to expect
low self regulation and poor work and the children come to see
themselves as poor students.
• Scenario 2: Children who have better EF are likely to be praised for
good behavior, enjoy school more and want to spend more time
working. Their teachers enjoy them and a self-reinforcing positive
feedback loop is created.
• Results: One child wants out and doesn’t expect to succeed. The other
wants in and fully expects to succeed.
Neuroplasticity is behind both scenarios
• Think of a stream bed:
– The bed affects where the water flows
– But, the water flow itself can also change the course of
the stream bed
• In the brain, neurons that “fire together, wire together”
• So neural networks that are repeatedly activated
become stronger and more efficient (and the opposite is
also true)
• And practiced neural networks can become habits
Example of rapid brain change
(Casasanto, D. and Bottini, R. (2013), Spatial language and abstract
concepts. WIREs Cogn Sci. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1271)
Synaptic Plasticity
What Executive Functioning Looks Like for
Adults
• Maria Joao Pirex - Pianist who practiced the
wrong piece
• http://www.youtube.com/watchv=n10DvWQW9_w
Habit vs. Voluntary Control of Behavior
Most human activity—whether simple or complex—
is habitual, a function of procedural learning.
Effort is required to:
inhibit habitual activity
disrupt a habit
respond to novel situations
engage in novel activity
create new habits
Brain Activation for Habits
• MRIs of brains in habit mode – PFC shows
little activity
• Example of learning to drive
• Once the mechanics of driving are
mastered, one can focus on navigation,
defensive driving and can respond to
dangerous situations
Habits
• Procedural learning causes the things we do
repeatedly to become habits.
– They become automatic and nonconscious.
– Habits are very efficient, and we rely on them most of
the time. They require less effort than deliberate action.
• Sometimes habits are not useful or adaptive.
– Then we need to change them.
• The likelihood that we’ll perform a habitual
behavior depends on our state.
By Changing Habits, We Strengthen
Executive Functioning
• We engage in habits unconsciously.
• By drawing attention to them at the time, we
become conscious of them.
– This prevents them from being enacted automatically
and unconsciously.
– Repeatedly drawing awareness to a habit will disrupt its
performance.
– Focusing attention helps strengthen connections in the
prefrontal cortex.
• It’s still easier to do what is a habit than to inhibit
the habit, or perform a novel behavior.
By Developing Habits, We Scaffold
Executive Functioning
• EF involves the ability to initiate goal-directed,
deliberate behavior, and to inhibit habitual,
inappropriate, or irrelevant behavior.
• EF typically involves effort, so it goes against the
grain to use EF rather than do what is easiest.
• Developing habits that support our executive
functions can scaffold those efforts.
• What skills can be transferred to habit?
Executive Function and State
• To a large extent, our state determines our level of
motivation.
• Our state of mind at any time determines how
likely we are to do a particular thing.
– Example: If I’m depressed, I’ll have depressing
thoughts about myself, but if I’m happy, I won’t.
– A very desperate state may lead to desperate behavior.
• State is more complex than this, but different
factors affect state, which affects what we do.
– This includes whether we will use our executive
functions, or just go with the flow of habits.
Executive Function is affected by
your State
•
•
•
•
•
•
Stress
Expectations/Mood
Energy level
Blood glucose levels
Pain
Poor health/Inflammation