Executive Functioning: Key Ingredient in Lifetime Performance

Some people are hard-working and complete their jobs immediately, whereas others wait till the last day to complete their duties. While, some students can act according to rules, others can’t. Why do people differ in their ability to control their thoughts and behaviors? What are the cognitive and biological bases of individual differences?

Our brain and mind develops through our lifetime and at the center of this structure, we have skills called executive functioning. Executive functioning is a set of general-purpose control processes that regulate one’s thoughts and behaviors. It is a mental process that helps connect past experience with present action. This feature of executive functioning is also important for meaningful learning. Considering, the most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. People use executive functioning to perform activities such as planning, organizing, strategizing, paying attention to and remembering details, and managing time and space. It highly correlates with metacognitive skills of an individual. This process requires not just thinking about your own thinking, it also requires the strategies that you going to use to accomplish a certain duty.

Therefore, a child has to manage and regulate a lot of information and at the same time s/he has to avoid distractions. Obviously, sometimes there can be individuals who are struggling with these skills. This deficit leads many students to have learning disabilities. The prefrontal cortex is important for executive function. But, it also involves controlling your behavior through its interactions with all other parts of the brain.  Executive functions improve radically over the first few years and it continues to improve through adolescence. A research has conducted to determine the frequency, nature, and severity of executive dysfunction (EDF) at 8 years of age in extremely low birth weight (ELBW)/very preterm infants who were born in the 1990s, compared with normal birth weight (NBW) control subjects. The ELBW/very preterm cohort exhibited significant EDF compared with their NBW peers in all areas assessed. The ELBW/very preterm children also displayed more behavioral problems indicative of EDF than the NBW children. So, we can explicitly see that innate traits and developmental process have a great effect on executive functioning.

However, these are not the only concepts, which affects executive functions. As well as a person’s executive function abilities are shaped by physical changes in the brain and it also affects by life experiences. Still, who have executive dysfunction can be successful in life. Early attentions to develop these skills are crucial. Giving direct instructions, continual reassurance and accurate feedback are essential steps in the way to develop individuals’ executive function abilities. There are many people who struggle with executive dysfunctions. However, there is one thing that they have to remember: It is not a failure and they can achieve success! Early attentions of sophisticated instructors are essential in order for the successful development of these capacities.

References:

[1] National Center for Learning Disabilities, What is executive functioning?, NCLD Editorial Team

[2] Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, InBrief: Executive Function: Skills for Life and Learning

[3] Executive Functioning in School-Aged Children Who Were Born Very Preterm or With Extremely Low Birth Weight in the 1990s, Peter J. Anderson, PhD, Lex W. Doyle, MD, Victorian Infant Collaborative Study Group, Offical Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics

[4] The Nature and Organization of Individual Differences in Executive Functions: Four General Conclusions, Akira Miyake and Naomi P. Friedman, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado at Boulder and Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado at Boulder

Your Memory Is You!

You would probably heard many people saying ‘I have a bad memory.’ or ‘It was a long time ago, it’s impossible for me to remember that event.’ Having a bad memory is commonly thought like a characteristic of an individual. However when we consider about these situations, both of them have cognitive reasons. Mainly, forgetting happens when an individual fails to encode or retrieve the information. Three stages are essential for the transfer of the information. These are: sensory memory, working memory and long-term memory. We can think of working memory as the active part in this system. Besides the importance of working memory, attention should be the first step in this process. Individuals have to have a reason and curiosity to learn in order to knowledge become memorable. Also, learning must be meaningful and individuals should be able to make connections with related knowledge already in the long-term memory.

Memory is the ability, which develops in childhood and expands through our experiences. The loss of memory in older age can be painful, however it is a developmental process likewise the fact that we can’t remember our infancy. Language, capitals of countries, types of animals… All the things that you can imagine are learned through our environment. And when you asked something from what you have learned, you try to give an answer to the question, which means, you actually retrieve the information from your long-term memory.

Remembering things feel very simple and you don’t think the process of how you remember. Our memory shapes our identity. From birth and even from mother’s womb, our brain has a remarkable ability. It interacts with our environment and continuously changes by the experiences we have. However, remembering doesn’t begin immediately from birth. Some research have shown that remembering starts with the development of self-concept sense. As individuals become more aware of themselves and effects of their environment on themselves, then they become able to remember. Before the emergence of self, individuals seem themselves just like observers and think that all the events are happening out of their territory. After the emergence of self, individuals starts to get the sense of things are not happening out of their territory, it is happening to them. We can clearly see the signs of this change in the child and mirror test.

Expressing ourselves, speaking, eating, going to work, taking shower… We need memory for every single thing that we do. Our memory contains everything about ourselves. After all, it is still couldn’t fully understand exactly how you remember or what occurs during recall.

References:

[1] How Does Your Memory Work - Biology Psychology Documentary, Lesson created by Nisreen Mohamedali

[2] National Center for Learning Disabilities, What is working memory and why does is matter?, Annie Stuart

Risk Taking in Adolescent and Adulthood

What is risk taking? Likewise every concept, we can’t find a definite definition to this concept too. For some people, bungee jumping is a risk taking and for some people drug/alcohol usage is a type of risk taking. Generally, risk-taking behavior is defined as reckless behavior and results of poor self-regulation and some will define risk taking as the tendency to pursue sensory pleasure and excitement.

What are the causes and conditions of risk-taking? Is it different between adolescent and adulthood? Does adolescent have tendency to take place in risky situations? There are many different views in this point. Yet, one definition cannot explain the conditions of risk-taking, different views can support the underlying causes of it.

There is a general view that adolescents are more inclined to take risks. Biodeterminists argues that, because of the controlling, monitoring and evaluating parts of the brain are not completely evolved in adolescent period; they can’t analyze the risky situations. However, Males states that, we can’t only examine factors of risk taking by biodeterministic point of view. There is also environment’ effect on individuals’ characteristics and actions. Our current environment shapes the emergences of our behaviors. Therefore, likewise biological factors, social factors are also important in our behaviors. Besides, biological and social factors there are two additional factors that contribute to process of shaping behavior. These are, cognitive and evolutionary factors. Different personalities, cognitive processes, different environment and epoch, all will have different effects on individuals.

All these processes of shaping behavior and different aspects affects the possibility of risk taking. So, can we say that adolescents have more tendencies to take risks just because of the biological view, while there are many other factors that influences it’ emergence? We can’t categorize adolescents as the majority group that takes risks just because they have more tendency to drug use and car accidents.

Psychological scientists have found that adolescents are just as cautious as adults and children. The difference between the lab and the real world, Figner says, is partly the extent to which they involve emotion. In an experiment where adolescents’ emotions got triggered strongly, they looked very different from children and adults and took bigger risks, just as observed in real world settings.

Emotion can affect decisions about risk-taking in all age groups, not just adolescents, Figner says. ["Who Takes Risks When and Why? Determinants of Risk-Taking.", Association for Psychological Science, 2011]

Risk taking became the part of our lives. Everyday we come across with decisions that can lead us to take a risk. No wonder, some risk taking situations will have bad consequences. However, we can’t improve ourselves, unless we don’t take risks.

References:

"Who Takes Risks When and Why? Determinants of Risk-Taking.", Association for Psychological Science, 2011