Executive function across the life span.

By Philip David Zelazo, Fergus I. M. Craik, L. Booth. 2004

588 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The development and determinants of executive function (EF) were studied in children (mean age=8.8 years), young adults ( M= 22.3 years), and elderly adults (M = 71.1 years). EF was indexed by perseverative responding on two bidimensional sorting tasks (Visually Cued Color-Shape task and Auditorily Cued Number-Numeral task), and age-related changes in EF were considered in relation to estimates of conscious vs. unconscious memory that were obtained using the process dissociation procedure (PDP). Results revealed the rise and fall of EF across the life span, with significant quadratic trends found for performance on both sorting tasks and for the conscious recollection component (C) of the PDP task. Regression analyses indicated that PDP estimates of conscious memory accounted for variation in performance on the visual sorting task, but not on the auditory sorting task. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for hierarchical models of EF and its development.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience

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Citations in the corpus

A Brain-Based Account of the Development of Rule Use in Childhood (2006, background): “Thus, improvements in rule use during middle childhood and adolescence (e.g., Zelazo et al., 2004) are likely related to maturation of the lateral PFC; whether this is also the case for improvements earlier in childhood remains to be seen.”
Effortful Control, Executive Functions, and Education: Bringing Self‐Regulatory and Social‐Emotional Competencies to the Table (2012, background): “…2004; Lemery, Goldsmith, Klinnert, & Mrazek, 1999; Nigg, 2006), whereas executive functions are higher order and later developing cognitive abilities that are relatively responsive to intervention or training (Brocki & Bohlin, 2004; Diamond et al., 2007; Garon et al., 2008; Zelazo et al., 2004).”
Infants Determine Others' Focus of Attention by Pragmatics and Exclusion (2006, background): “Indeed, all indications are that interindividual, as well as intraindividual, variability in executive function is the norm in adulthood (Diamond & Kirkham, in press; Kuhn, 2001; Zelazo, Craik, & Booth, 2004 ).”
The Neurodevelopment of Empathy in Humans (2010, background): “Indeed, improvement in inhibitory control corresponds with increasing metacognitive capacities [Zelazo et al., 2004], as well as with maturation of brain regions which underlie working memory and inhibitory control [Tamm et al.”