The interdisciplines of cognitive science, and a large portion of the behavioral sciences, are geared towards this. This is a huge question -- even in a limited interpretation there would be 1000s of studies that qualify, and 100s of different version of the question. To narrow it down a bit, however, and to dispute a couple of the previous answers: human experimental neuroscience has not included both cognition and everyday actions in its paradigms. Think fMRI: you are lying in a loud, clanking spinning magnet, mostly unable to move. No everyday action correspondence. Much of psychology is the same: at its worst, in the 1980s, subjects did paper and pencil fictional versions of real scenarios. This is actually the roots of the ACT-R models that another respondent mentioned: that model uses *symbolic*, not embodied, versions of everyday tasks, with only the most abstracted versions of real conditions. I'd classify it as a rather old-school, quasi-propositional, non-biologically grounded approach to modeling. But a lot of current modeling still has some of the same problems.

At any rate: although everyday cognition research and attempts to build ecological validity have been around since the 1970s, there is an increasing body of newer research using cutting edge methods to assess cognitive processes (I include in this perceptual-motor dynamics) during more naturalistic actions. Also, cognitive ethnographic methods (see Ed Hutchins' classic book Cognition in the Wild) has long been concerned with the issues. (Although I would say that task analysis of the individual's cognitive process has not been a focus of most cognitive ethnography work; that approach is more common in traditional cognitive psychology).

Some key terms to look up and search on: active (or mobile) EEG, ecological psychology, embodied cognition, BCI, active vision, everyday cognition, situated cognition, distributed cognition, cognitive ethnography. Even so, you will find 1000s of studies that are relevant to your very broad question. Your first task is actually to sharpen and narrow down the question.

Standard neuropsychological tasks are certainly assumed to assess particular cognitive domains. However, the literature suggests that standard neuropsychological tests do not have great ecological validity within a cognitive domain and are often influenced by other domains. For example, the Rey-O complex figure is used to assess visual memory. However, if the patient has poor executive functioning abilities, it will suggest that there memory is awful, which may not necessarily be the case. In contrast, there are a number of experimental neurocognitive tests known to assess specific cognitive domains or specific brain regions. These tests tend to require many trials, statistical analysis, and some knowledge of experimental psychology which precludes them from being commonly used in standard neuropsychological evaluations. Hopefully this helps!

It has been a goal of neuropsychologist to be able to predict functional behaviors from neuropsychological test scores for a long time. However functional behaviors can be accomplished in many different ways so that the ability to predict a functional impairment from neuropsychological test scores is described at best (even by the proponents of such attempts) as "moderate". Cognitive processes and functional behavior are probably best regarded as related but distinct constructs and assessed independently.

Dear Peter, I'd answer ABSOLUTELY YES to your question. Moreover, a good neuropsychological assessment (within clinical practice) should specifically address the issue of what basic & instrumental ADLs are expected to be impaired as a result of the patient’s neuropsychological profile. Linking specific ADLs with specific cognitive domains is however a difficult issue, because most high-demanding activities involve multiple cognitive domains. I’d say that is easier to start from neuropsychological profile and then anticipate difficulties with functional independence than the other way around. My clinical impression is that moderate-severe impairment of ANY cognitive area will potentially cause some degree of functional impairment (I work doing neuro-rehab with brain-injury patients). On the other hand, we have some unpublished data showing that among all cognitive functions executive functions (including not only cognitive, but also behavioral and emotional domains) have a leading role in predicting functional impairment/independence.

Yes Peter; you can study the ACT-R model and find yourself the answers to your questions: http://act-r.psy.cmu.edu/ ; this model is it an theory of the mind and his community of researchers have realized computational simulations of all cognitive process

The interdisciplines of cognitive science, and a large portion of the behavioral sciences, are geared towards this. This is a huge question -- even in a limited interpretation there would be 1000s of studies that qualify, and 100s of different version of the question. To narrow it down a bit, however, and to dispute a couple of the previous answers: human experimental neuroscience has not included both cognition and everyday actions in its paradigms. Think fMRI: you are lying in a loud, clanking spinning magnet, mostly unable to move. No everyday action correspondence. Much of psychology is the same: at its worst, in the 1980s, subjects did paper and pencil fictional versions of real scenarios. This is actually the roots of the ACT-R models that another respondent mentioned: that model uses *symbolic*, not embodied, versions of everyday tasks, with only the most abstracted versions of real conditions. I'd classify it as a rather old-school, quasi-propositional, non-biologically grounded approach to modeling. But a lot of current modeling still has some of the same problems.

At any rate: although everyday cognition research and attempts to build ecological validity have been around since the 1970s, there is an increasing body of newer research using cutting edge methods to assess cognitive processes (I include in this perceptual-motor dynamics) during more naturalistic actions. Also, cognitive ethnographic methods (see Ed Hutchins' classic book Cognition in the Wild) has long been concerned with the issues. (Although I would say that task analysis of the individual's cognitive process has not been a focus of most cognitive ethnography work; that approach is more common in traditional cognitive psychology).

Some key terms to look up and search on: active (or mobile) EEG, ecological psychology, embodied cognition, BCI, active vision, everyday cognition, situated cognition, distributed cognition, cognitive ethnography. Even so, you will find 1000s of studies that are relevant to your very broad question. Your first task is actually to sharpen and narrow down the question.

Hi!

I think some books and authors have answered this question. have you read the " the brain and behavior"? it has completely explained the role of cognitive functions in ADL. its main goal is to describe cognitive disorders in stroke patients but could be used as a major reference for that you want. it has a functional assessment at the end of the book which analyses the ADL according to cognitive components.

... also you can study the book written by Lezak. these are old books but applicable...

Good luck

Shadi

A very good question, but hard to answer!

I think we should keep two considerations in mind. First, areas of cognition such as memory, attention, language, emotions are not so distinct as suggested by handbooks of psychology and neuroscience. Real life (naturalistic, 'wild') processes like playing chess, the piano, driving a car, listening to a Mozart symphony tap different cognitive functions and related brain networks simultaneously.

Second, even isolated ('artificial') cognitive functions are complex amalgams of various modular compents. Thats why most laboratory studies in the past have focused on the analysis of single functions in order to tease apart their subcomponents.

One step further would be to look at how two functions interact with another. This can be achieved by manipulating different levels of (for example) attention and memory, or even memory and emotional involvement, in a factorial design.

The bottom line of my answer to the current question is that studying 'real life' functions may not be a very fruitful approach in cognitive science, At least not in situations where the more 'microscopic' elements or structure of human cognition remain unknown.

In the laboratory, we often work hard to design tasks that emphasize only one cognitive process, while we know that in day-to-day life of course many processes work together to accomplish even simple tasks (really anything above a spinal reflex).

You may be interested in approaches classified under "task analysis."

You need to start with an overarching view of how the brain works as a whole and is regulated, how it is divided up into functional systems, and how its functions are impaired by brain damage. The best person to spell this out is still Alexander Luria.

The analytic strategies employed can go along way in answering your first question. Partialling scores, using composite scores, and perhaps most effectively, developing factor scores will identify the aspects of cognition that are shared and independent from each other. I have attached a paper where we use PCA to derive a single factor score that represents the shared variance amongst all tests and then partial this factor score in equations between gender and each cognitive test to determine which test has the strongest unique, i.e., unrelated to the shared variance, association with gender. This method of partialling to infer how areas of cognition interact is largely based on the work of the superb cognitive psychologist, Timothy A. Salthouse.

The second question you raise on how to relate patterns of cognitive activity to functional performance could be achieved by using a functional measure(s), instead of gender, in similar analyses as described above. This isn't the most sophisticated approach to your question but it is a nice way to get a hands on understanding of the patterns in your data.

Article Gender Differences and Cognition Among Older Adults

"we use PCA to derive a single factor score that represents the shared variance amongst all tests"

Is 'g' the ghost that dare not speak its name?

I've been working on a theory of cognitive styles since 1986 – the current result is at cognitivestyles.com. You might wish to look at the sections 1a Lateral Frontopolar, down to 1f Aspects of Depression, located in the drop-down list. This is a review distilled from 380 recent neurological papers, integrated with collated direct quotes from historical biographies of famous individuals, showing how areas of cognition interact, and which are responsible in order to achieve particular activities of everyday action.

Clauss, [Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci, Expectation and temperament moderate amygdala and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex responses to fear faces, 2011 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3049952/ ] speaks of an inhibited temperament, comprising 15% of the population, in which the amygdala does not habituate as normal. The architecture at cognitivestyles.com suggests that there are six more variants of humanity for a total of seven (7 times 15% equals 105%, consistent with an extension of Clauss’s estimate of 15% for the one variant). Each style will have its distinct way of acting, in line with the cognitive strategy it emphasizes.

To answer the question more specifically, executive control is handled by the left lateral frontopolar (using values developed by the medial frontopolar) extending back into the left dorsolateral and its working memory, with implementation under the control of the right superior parietal as it adjusts the imaginative precuneus (which is a scratchpad for the lateral and medial frontopolar) and also influences the reality-based left superior parietal, under monitoring by the rule-based left inferior frontal (with the right superior parietal poised to switch top-down right hemisphere dorsal path influence at the right temporoparietal junction into bottom-up direct control). This right superior parietal monitoring, in combination with right inferior frontal bottom-up control of the ventral path (which is normally top-down) under conditions of emotional ambiguity, is a core aspect of attention. All of this is maintained and monitored in turn by the dorsal anterior cingulate.

Semantic and procedural memory are more complex – for instance, external values such as beauty are accessed by the medial frontopolar and become the basis for decisions in the lateral frontopolar, whereas internal values such as one’s current level of hunger are processed in the basolateral amygdala and stored on an ongoing basis in the insula for use by the right inferior frontal (which overlays the insula) in its ventral path processing of emotional ambiguity.