Although dual-task interference is ubiquitous in a variety of task domains, stop-signal studies suggest that response inhibition is not subject to such interference. Nevertheless, no study has directly examined stop-signal performance in a dual-task setting. In two experiments, stop-signal performance was examined in a psychological refractory…

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) report difficulty integrating simultaneously presented visual and auditory stimuli (Iarocci & McDonald, 2006), albeit showing enhanced perceptual processing of unisensory stimuli, as well as an enhanced role of perception in higher-order cognitive tasks (Enhanced Perceptual Functioning (EPF) model;…

Schizophrenia is characterized by heterogeneous brain abnormalities involving cerebral regions implied in the executive functioning. The dysexecutive syndrome is one of the most prominent and functionally cognitive features of schizophrenia. Nevertheless, it is not clear to what extend executive deficits are heterogeneous in schizophrenia…

Executive functions (EF) and intelligence are of critical importance to success in many everyday tasks. Working memory, or updating, which is one latent variable identified in confirmatory factor analytic models of executive functions, predicts intelligence (both fluid and crystallised) in adults, but inhibition and shifting do not (Friedman et…

Anxiety and depression are linked to lower academic performance. It is proposed that academic performance is reduced in young people with high levels of anxiety or depression as a function of increased test-specific worry that impinges on working memory central executive processes. Participants were typically developing children (12 to…

Executive function mechanisms underpinning language-related effects on theory of mind understanding were examined in a sample of 165 preschoolers. Verbal labels were manipulated to identify relevant perspectives on an explicit false belief task. In Experiment 1 with 4-year-olds (N = 74), false belief reasoning was superior in the fully and…

This article presents an examination of the language demands of cognitively demanding tasks and proposes an initial framework for the language demands of higher-order mathematics thinking practices. We articulate four categories for this framework: "language of generalisation," "language of comparison," "language of proportional reasoning," and…

Moment to moment, a writer faces a host of potential problems. How does the writer's mind coordinate this problem solving? In the original Hayes and Flower model, the authors posited a distinct process to manage this coordinating--that is, the "monitor." The monitor became responsible for executive function in writing. In two…

The study examined individual differences in code-switching to determine the relationship between code-switching frequency and performance in verbal and non-verbal task switching. Seventy-eight Cantonese-English bilinguals completed a semi-structured conversation to quantify natural code-switching, a verbal fluency task requiring language…

The rate at which people process information appears to influence many aspects of cognition across the lifespan. However, many commonly accepted measures of "processing speed" may require goal maintenance, manipulation of information in working memory, and decision-making, blurring the distinction between processing speed and executive…

The present study investigated the development of executive functions (EFs) and their associations with performance and behavior at school in 8-12-year-old children. The EFs were measured by computer-based n-back, Continuous Performance and Go/Nogo tasks. School performance was evaluated by Teacher Report Form (TRF) and behavior by TRF and Child…

This study examined metalinguistic awareness in children who were becoming bilingual in an immersion education program. The purpose was to determine at what point in emerging bilingualism the previously reported metalinguistic advantages appear and what types of metalinguistic tasks reveal these developmental differences. Participants were 124…

Since Piaget, the view that motor and cognitive development are interrelated has gained wide acceptance. However, empirical research on this issue is still rare. Few studies show a correlation of performance in cognitive and motor tasks in typically developing children. More specifically, Diamond A. (2000) hypothesizes an involvement of executive…

Although memory inhibition seems to underlie retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF), there is some controversy about the precise nature of this effect. Because normal RIF is observed in people with deficits in executive control (i.e., older adults), some have proposed that an automatic-like inhibitory process is responsible for the effect. On the…

Healthy aging is characterized by a number of changes on brain structure and function. Several neuroimaging studies have shown an age-related reduction in hemispheric asymmetry on various cognitive tasks, a phenomenon captured by Cabeza (2002) in the Hemispheric Asymmetry Reduction in Older Adults (HAROLD) model. Although this phenomenon is…