Abstract
Recently, there has been growing interest in understanding how executive functions are conceptualized in psychopathology. Since several models have been proposed, the major issue lies within the definition of executive functioning itself. Theoretical discussions have emerged, narrowing the boundaries between “hot” and “cold” executive functions or between self-regulation and cognitive control. Nevertheless, the definition of executive functions is far from a consensual proposition and it has been suggested that these models might be outdated. Current efforts indicate that human behavior and cognition are by-products of many brain systems operating and interacting at different levels, and therefore, it is very simplistic to assume a dualistic perspective of information processing. Based upon an adaptive perspective, we discuss how executive functions could emerge from the ability to solve immediate problems and to generalize successful strategies, as well as from the ability to synthesize and to classify environmental information in order to predict context and future. We present an executive functioning perspective that emerges from the dynamic balance between automatic-controlled behaviors and an emotional-salience state. According to our perspective, the adaptive role of executive functioning is to automatize efficient solutions simultaneously with cognitive demand, enabling individuals to engage such processes with increasingly complex problems. Understanding executive functioning as a mediator of stress and cognitive engagement not only fosters discussions concerning individual differences, but also offers an important paradigm to understand executive functioning as a continuum process rather than a categorical and multicomponent structure.
Highlights
The conceptualizations of executive functions have emerged from the observation of patients who had suffered frontal lobe lesions and became unable to manipulate, integrate, and respond to internal and external stimulus in the same way they used to do (Jurado and Rosselli, 2007; Goldstein et al, 2014)
Based upon an evolutionary perspective, Ardila (2008) emphasized that executive functions are mediated by dynamic and flexible neuronal networks, questioning the central role of prefrontal cortex (PFC) in the executive functions and, afterward, discussing how the executive functions may have evolved in our species
Questioning the central role of PFC in relation to executive functions goes beyond suggesting that executive functions involve subcortical networks, but this allow us to question the hierarchical perspective in which PFC exerts control over impulses and should be taken as the center of rationality
Summary
The conceptualizations of executive functions have emerged from the observation of patients who had suffered frontal lobe lesions and became unable to manipulate, integrate, and respond to internal and external stimulus in the same way they used to do (Jurado and Rosselli, 2007; Goldstein et al, 2014).
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