S2 L9 - Cognitive Control

Question 1

What are some examples of cognitive control?

Answer 1

Inhibition - stopping urself from doing a behaviour so inhibit a behaviour

Flexibility - selecting behaviours that will suit certain situations/contexts (bc you can perform a large range of behaviours and tasks)

Multi-tasking

Question 2

What is Cognition?

Answer 2

Basis for intelligent behaviour
Overrides reflexive, habitual responses in favour of complex, often long-term goals
Controls/orchestrates sensory, memory, and motor systems > Cognitive Control
Key neural structure in mammals: Prefrontal cortex

Question 3

Cognitive control can be used interchangeably with what?

Answer 3

Executive function

Question 4

What are executive functions often used for?

Answer 4

Specific components such as working memory
cognitive control - less clear separation of distinct subcomponents

Question 5

What is inhibitory control?

Answer 5

A crucial executive function/cognitive control

without it we would be impulsive, habitual thoughts or actions, conditioned responses

we can change and choose how to behave and react
important for pro-social behaviour

important for pro-social behaviour - eg queueing

inhibitory control of attention - cocktail party effect - top/down vs bottom up , exogenous vs endogenous processing

Question 6

What is A Go/NoGo task?

Answer 6

in a Go/NoGo task the p needs to respond to some stimuli (Go stimuli ) but not to others (NOGO stimuli)

Question 7

What are the measures of behavioural inhibition?

Answer 7

Stroop task
Go/NoGo task
stop-signal task

Question 8

In inhibitory control how do we stre

Answer 8

In inhibitory control inhibition causes strengthening and inhibition of behaviour we do not want to do

Question 9

What is a key function of the frontal lobe?

Answer 9

to inhibit automatic and habitual behaviour

Question 10

What is cognitive flexibility?

Answer 10

Flexibility in our behaviours or problem solving

change perspectives - visually, spatially, interpersonally

relies on inhibition of old information
loading new info into WM
builds on inhibition and WM

Question 11

How can we test for cognitive flexibility?

Answer 11

Design fluency - how many uses can you think of for this item

wISCONSIN cARD SORTING TASK - task switching and set shifting tasks