A microworld simulation of dynamic cognition as a test of executive function.

INTRODUCTION: The lack of consensus regarding the nature or composition of executive functioning (EF) has led to a proliferation of executive tasks to assess the concept. Many do agree however that the theoretical concept of EF is a holistic one, leading us to consider whether it would be beneficial to assess EF in a more holistic manner. We explore how well a computerized simulation of dynamic cognition - that reproduces the context of real-world complex decision-making - can predict performance on nine classical neuropsychological tasks of EF. METHODS: A sample of 121 participants completed all tasks, and canonical correlations were used to assess the nine tasks as predictors of the three simulation performance metrics to evaluate the multivariate-shared relationship between the two variable sets: executive functions and dynamic cognition. RESULTS: Results show that a substantial amount of variance in two indices of dynamic cognition can be explained by a linear combination of three key types of neuropsychological tasks (planning, inhibition, working memory), with a larger contribution from the planning tasks. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that tasks of dynamic cognition could augment traditional, separate tests of EF, offering benefits in terms of parsimony, ecological validity, sensitivity, and computerized delivery.

A multiperspective approach to the conceptualization of executive functions.

The concept of executive function (EF) is deemed unclear and difficult to operationalize. We use a multiperspective approach to quantify and reduce the current proliferation of EFs. A literature review of 60 studies identified 68 subcomponents of EF: Through objective statistical techniques, these terms were reduced to 18 by removing semantic overlap (using latent semantic analysis) and psychometric overlap (using hierarchical cluster analysis). However, still such a large number of functions lacks parsimony. We therefore revisit the concept of EF and suggest that the many proposed subcomponents are not functions per se but rather a number of task-specific behaviors.