The number of scientific publications on executive function currently increases exponentially. Yet, the explanantory power of that psychological construct remains obscure.
As a purely psychological contruct, without any claims about its implementation in the brain, the main issues surrounding it remain unresolved: These issues concern the dimensionality of executive function (this is akin to the historical difficulties to determine the dimensionality of intellectual function), and the validity (convergent, divergent, predictive) and reliability of executive measures. To put it shortly, none of these fundamental issues has hitherto been resolved up to a satisfactory degree.
With regard to the implementation of executive function in the brain, my conclusion is similarly pessimistic, in that to date we do not possess a feasible functional brain map of executive function. Of course, a solution of the neuropsychological problems that are associated with executive function presupposes a solution of the named psychological problems surrounding that enigmatic construct.
It is my impression, after more than 25 years in the field, that psychological science needs paradigm shifts at multiple levels (i.e., methodological and theoretical) if we ever want to resolve the many diffculties that are related to the scientific study of executive function.
Bruno,
I understand your puzzling regarding 'executive functions', for many years I was struggling like you with the concept. But good news, I solved the problem (theoretically and methodologically). Please have a look to the following papers:
Cheers,
Fabian
Article The Mind of a Visionary: The Morphology of Cognitive Anticip...
Article Human, All Too Human: Euclidean and Multifractal Analysis in...
Article Restoring the integrative value to the notion of executive f...
Dear Fabian Labra-Spröhnle,
thanks for bringing my attention to your writings, which are very interesting. I like your idea to connect the EF concept with its origins that were laid out by Luria and his colleagues. Yet, despite the fact that I agree with you at the conceptual level (as many would do - see, for example, J. Fuster's writings), I do not really see a solution of the problem at the operational level: How could we measure the abduction-deduction-induction triad of cognitive anticipation, provided that these measures meet the named criteria of their usefullness/quality? (Even the visionary Luria himself did not develop the suitable solution.)
Regards
Bruno Kopp
Dear Bruno,
My Paper: Human, All Too Human: Euclidean and Multifractal Analysis in an Experimental Diagrammatic Model of Thinking, explains broadly, and at an operational level: 'how could we measure the abduction-deduction-induction triad of cognitive anticipation' . I have used this method to produce a testing system for ADHD.(Now under commercial development) Please have a look to my current project in Researchgate page: The Dynamic Patterns of Thinking in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): Diagnostic accuracy of Euclidean, multifractal, lacunarity and kinematic measures.
Cheers,
Fabian
Dear Bruno,
We have, Andres Kurismaa and I, started a new project that maybe is of your interest:: "The lost steps in the cartography of executive functions (EF) and Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)".
Cheers,
Fabian
Dear Bruno,
I have added a preprint in RG that surely helps to answer your question and gives experimental evidence to my former answers. I would appreciate your comments.
"Predictive Modelling of The Dynamic Patterns of Thinking in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Diagnostic Accuracy of Spatiotemporal Fractal Measures"
Cheers,
Fabian
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