College of Behavioral & Social Sciences

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/8

The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..

Browse

Subject: search.filters.subject.executive function

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Reactive and Proactive Adaptation of Cognitive and Motor Neural Signals during Performance of a Stop-Change Task
    (MDPI, 2021-05-11) Brockett, Adam T.; Roesch, Matthew R.
    The ability to inhibit or suppress unwanted or inappropriate actions, is an essential component of executive function and cognitive health. The immense selective pressure placed on maintaining inhibitory control processes is exemplified by the relatively small number of instances in which these systems completely fail in the average person’s daily life. Although mistakes and errors do inevitably occur, inhibitory control systems not only ensure that this number is low, but have also adapted behavioral strategies to minimize future failures. The ability of our brains to adapt our behavior and appropriately engage proper motor responses is traditionally depicted as the primary domain of frontal brain areas, despite evidence to the fact that numerous other brain areas contribute. Using the stop-signal task as a common ground for comparison, we review a large body of literature investigating inhibitory control processes across frontal, temporal, and midbrain structures, focusing on our recent work in rodents, in an effort to understand how the brain biases action selection and adapts to the experience of conflict.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Developmental differences in relations between parent-reported executive function and unitized and non-unitized memory representations during childhood
    (Frontiers, 2015-08-19) Blankenship, Sarah L.; Riggins, Tracy
    Previous research has documented an association between executive functioning (EF) and memory for bound details. However, it is unknown if this relation varies as a function of the type of bound information (i.e., unitized versus non-unitized) and whether this association changes as a function of age during childhood, when both EF and memory undergo rapid development. The current study sought to address these gaps by examining whether relations between parent-reported EF differed for unitized versus non-unitized memory representations and if these relations differed between children who were 4, 6, or 8 years of age. Results revealed that EF was selectively associated with non-unitized associative memory in 8-year-old children; no significant relations between EF and either memory condition were evident in 4- or 6-year-olds. These results suggest relations between EF and memory may be specific to non-unitized representations and that this association may emerge across childhood as both EF and memory abilities develop.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Executive function in aphasia: is there a bilingual advantage?
    (2013) Baughman, Susan; Faroqi-Shah, Yasmeen; Hearing and Speech Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Previous studies have demonstrated that there is a bilingual advantage in neurotypical populations on tasks of executive functions, particularly inhibition. However, little research has been conducted on a population with aphasia. This study examined whether bilingual persons with aphasia (BPWA) and monolingual persons with aphasia (MPWA) displayed any differences on tasks of executive functions. Four BPWA and four MPWA matched for age and Western Aphasia Battery subtest scores were administered a linguistic Stroop task, a nonlinguistic Stroop task, a trail-making task, and a non-verbal memory task. Results demonstrated that the two groups did not have significantly different scores on any of the tasks. While both groups of PWA were slower than neurotypical adults on reaction time measures, accuracy on all four tasks was unimpaired and within the normal range. These results, although preliminary given the small sample size and high performance accuracy, suggest that there may not be a clear "bilingual advantage" on tasks of executive function.