Different Components Of Executive Functions Research Articles

Executive Functions and Social-Emotional Problems in Toddlerhood: Nature, Persistence, and Direction of Associations.

Social-emotional problems can emerge as early as the first years of life and are associated with a broad range of negative outcomes throughout the lifespan. There is convincing evidence that poorer executive functions (EF) are associated with more social-emotionalproblems during childhood and adolescence. However, the nature, persistence, and direction of the associations between different components of EF and social-emotionalproblems in toddlerhood remain unclear. Using two complementary statistical approaches, the present study aimed to (a) identify the role of EF components (inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory) in the emergence and maintenance of social-emotional problems during toddlerhood, and (b) explore potential bidirectional associations between toddlers' EF and social-emotional problems. EF and social-emotional problems were assessed around 13, 19, and 28 months of age in a sample of 133 typically developing toddlers (51% boys) from mostly White middle-class families. At each time point, EF were measured with three behavioral tasks and social-emotional problems with a well-validated questionnaire completed by mothers. Multilevel growth models revealed a significant increase in social-emotional problems across toddlerhood and a negative association between inhibitory control and social-emotional problems that persisted across time. Controlling for stability across time, cross-lagged panel models indicated that child inhibitory control at 19 months negatively predicted child social-emotional problems at 28 months, but not the reverse. This study highlights that toddlerhood is a period of significant increase in social-emotional problems andprovides evidence for the protective role of early inhibitory control skills against the development of social-emotional problems during toddlerhood.

Testing the bilingual advantage for executive function: insights from hearing children who are native signers

ABSTRACT Bimodal bilingualism involves the use of a sign language and a spoken language, and offers a unique opportunity to explore the cognitive effects of growing up bilingual. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between bimodal bilingualism and executive function (EF) in hearing children who are native users of a sign language. We studied three groups of children: bimodal bilinguals (users of a sign language and a spoken language), unimodal bilinguals (users of two spoken languages), and monolinguals, performing three cognitive tasks to measure different components of EF: visuospatial working memory (Odd One Out task), cognitive flexibility (Children’s Colored Trails Test) and conflict resolution (Simon task). All groups of children obtained similar scores on the Odd One Out task and the Children’s Colored Trails Test. Bimodal bilinguals displayed distinct patterns of conflict resolution in comparison to monolingual children: bimodal bilinguals had better overall accuracy and slower overall reaction time in the Simon task. The subsequent analysis did not find a straightforward trade-off between speed and accuracy. These results suggest that bimodal language experience and/or visual-spatial language usage may explain the small bimodal bilingual advantage in the Simon task that we observed in hearing children who are native signers.

Development of Executive Functions in Preschoolers with Different Sibling Positions

The development of the executive functions in older preschoolers largely determines their subsequent successful adaptation and schooling. The purpose of the research is to identify the developmental features of the executive functions in older preschoolers with different sibling positions. The relevance of the theme is due to the growing number of children with insufficient development of self-regulation. The study involved 393 preschoolers attending senior groups of kindergartens: 153 - single children in the family, 99 - oldest, 21 - middle, 110 - youngest children, 10 - twins). The levels of development of the participants’ executive functions were determined using three subtests of the neuropsychological complex NEPSY II (“Inhibition”, “Sentences Repetition” and “Memory for Design”) as well as the “Dimensional Change Card Sort” technique by F. Zelazo. It was revealed that auditory-speech memory is best developed in the oldest children in the family. The results obtained make it possible to suggest a different structure of connections between different components of executive functions in children with different sibling positions. The level and structure of the developed executive functions in the single and youngest children in the family are more similar to each other than in the oldest and single children or in the oldest and youngest ones.

The relationship between different components of executive function and depression in Chinese adolescents: Sequential mediation involving rumination

The relationship between different components of executive function and depression in Chinese adolescents: Sequential mediation involving rumination

Executive Dysfunctions in Different Learning Disabilities: A Review

Background: Executive functions (EFs) are a set of cognitive processes required to select and monitor behaviors that facilitate the achievement of desired goals. Many studies reported that students with learning disabilities appear to have impaired EFs and difficulties in performing school-related and daily activities. Methods: This review attempts to focus on identifying different components of executive functioning and its relationship with specific learning disabilities from the published literature. A search using 3 databases identified 37 relevant articles that met the inclusion criteria. Results: Many recent studies have found a relation between EFs with specific learning disabilities including meta-analysis and non-experimental comparative studies. Most of the studies were conducted among school children with reading, learning difficulties, and writing difficulties, university students with developmental dyscalculia and adults with or without dyslexia. Conclusion: Working memory is the key component affecting performances in children with learning disabilities whereas emotional control and metacognition skills such as organization of material, monitoring, planning, etc have a more specific role in different skills in performing the act of reading, writing, and mathematical operations. They may play a subdued role, but their involvement cannot be segregated because of the complex interplay between them.

Autism severity level affects working memory and planning but not inhibition, shifting and emotional control.

Autistic children often have difficulties in executive functions (EF). These difficulties can, in turn, affect their everyday functioning. It is less clear in what way EF are affected by the severity of autism symptoms in children. We hypothesize that autism severity level does not have the same effect across the different components of EF. In this study, we examined how EF are affected by the autism severity level in a sample of 52 autistic children aged 4-7 years (mean age- 5.4 years, SD- 0.9 years). EF were measured through teachers' reports on the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functions- Preschool Version. Autism severity level was measured with the Social Communication Questionnaire- Current Form. The results of this study showed that autism severity level impacted two EF, namely Planning and Working memory, and did not affect three EF components: Inhibition, Shifting, and Emotional Control. These results indicate that the cool or cognitive EF are more affected by autism severity level than hot EF. We conclude the article with suggestions for improving EF in autistic children.

Voluntary Control of Cognitive Activity in Preschool Children: Age-dependent Changes from Ages 3-4 to 4-5.

Voluntary control of goal-directed behavior and mental activity in preschool children plays a key role in knowledge acquisition and future academic achievement. Studies of voluntary control have mainly concerned 6-8-year old children; much less is known about the ability to exercise voluntary control at early ages. Due to the high prognostic value of the level of development of voluntary control and heterogeneous development of their individual components, it seems actually useful to study age-related changes of these components in children from 3-4 to 4-5 years old. To compare age-related changes in executive functions (EF) in children age 3-4 years (mean age: 3.5±0.2 yrs; n = 49; 31 boys) and 4-5 years (mean age: 4.5±0.3 yrs; n = 70; 35 boys). To assess the different components of EF we used: 1) a qualitative group and individual testing procedure based on the principles of Luria's theory of the dynamic localization and organization of higher mental functions; and 2) a computerized testing procedure which included the Bourdon-Wiersma cancellation test, the "Hearts and Flowers" conflict test (the Dots task), and the Corsi block-tapping test. The results showed that different components of voluntary control developed at different rates (heterochronically): there were significant progressive changes from 3-4 to 4-5 years for working memory, assimilation of instructions, switching between separate actions, selective concentration on a target or task, and the distribution of attention. Some other components of EF did not show significant positive dynamics during this period. The results indicate the importance of applying the activity theory approach to the development of cognitive processes in preschool age.

Executive function moderates the effect of reappraisal on life satisfaction: A latent variable analysis.

Emotion regulation strategies, such as reappraisal and suppression, have been shown to dissimilarly affect life satisfaction. Specifically, reappraisal is linked to higher life satisfaction, while suppression is associated with lower life satisfaction. Less is known, however, about the potential moderators of these established relations. Given that reappraisal and suppression are contingent, in part, on executive function (EF), which comprises a group of adaptive, goal-orientated control processes (i.e., inhibitory control, working memory, and shifting), we explored whether different components of EF could moderate the impact of reappraisal and suppression on life satisfaction. Using latent moderated structural equation analyses, we found that the positive contribution of reappraisal to life satisfaction was more pronounced at higher than lower levels of inhibitory control and working memory. Shifting did not moderate the associations of reappraisal and suppression with life satisfaction. Further analyses, however, indicated that the interactive effects of reappraisal with inhibitory control and working memory on life satisfaction were driven primarily by the shared variance among EF constructs (i.e., common EF). Our findings underscore the pivotal role of common EF in moderating the relation of reappraisal with life satisfaction. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Executive Functions and Impulsivity as Transdiagnostic Correlates of Psychopathology in Childhood: A Behavioral Genetic Analysis.

Executive functions (EFs) and impulsivity are dimensions of self-regulation that are both related to psychopathology. However, self-report measures of impulsivity and laboratory EF tasks typically display small correlations, and existing research indicates that impulsivity and EFs may tap separate aspects of self-regulation that independently statistically predict psychopathology in adulthood. However, relationships between EFs, impulsivity, and psychopathology may be different in childhood compared to adulthood. Here, we examine whether these patterns hold in the baseline assessment of the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) sample, a national sample of over 11,000 children (including 749 twin pairs) ages 9–10 years. We examine the phenotypic and genetic relationships among latent variables for different components of EFs and multiple facets of impulsivity. Additionally, we assess how EFs and impulsivity relate to composite measures and latent variables of psychopathology derived from parent report. EFs were weakly correlated with impulsivity, and the strength varied by impulsivity facet, emphasizing their separability. We did not identify significant genetic and environmental correlations between EFs and impulsivity. Moreover, controlling for their small relationships with each other, both EFs and some facets of impulsivity statistically predicted an Externalizing factor, attention problems, and social problems, and twin analyses suggested these relationships were genetic in origin. These findings indicate that EFs and impulsivity represent phenotypically and genetically separable aspects of self-regulation that are both transdiagnostic correlates of psychopathology in childhood.

Do Children Need Adult Support During Sociodramatic Play to Develop Executive Functions? Experimental Evidence.

The cultural-historical approach provides the deep theoretical grounds for the analysis of children’s play. Vygotsky suggested three critical features of play: switching to an imaginary situation, taking on a play role, and acting according to a set of rules defined by the role. Collaboration, finding ideas and materials for creating an imaginary situation, defining play roles, and planning the plot are complex tasks for children. However, the question is, do children need educator’s support during the play to develop their executive functions, and to what extent? This experimental study was aimed at answering this inquiry. The four modes of sociodramatic play were created which differed in the adult intervention, from non-involvement in the play to its entire organization. The play could be child-led (with adult help), adult-led, or free (without any adult intervention); and there was also a control group where the children heard the same stimulus stories as the other groups but then followed them up with a drawing activity instead of a play activity. The study revealed that, firstly, the ways of educator’s involvement in the play differed in their potential in respect to the development of executive functions, and, secondly, this influence was not equal for different components of executive functions. Free play in the experiment was not a beneficial condition for the development of any of the studied components of executive functions, compared to the conditions involving the participation of an adult in the play. Furthermore, the type of adult intervention stimulated the development of various executive functions. The entire organization of the play by the adult had a positive impact of their general development. In contrast, the adult’s assistance in the organization of the children’s play had a positive effect on the development of inhibitory control. The study results can be helpful when considering educational practices within a cultural-historical approach to engaging the potential of play in children’s learning and development around the world.

Differences in Brain Functional Networks of Executive Function Between Cantonese-Mandarin Bilinguals and Mandarin Monolinguals.

It remains controversial whether long-term logographic-logographic bilingual experience shapes the special brain functional subnetworks underlying different components of executive function (EF). To address this question, this study explored the differences in the functional connections underlying EF between the Cantonese-Mandarin bilinguals and Mandarin monolinguals. 31 Cantonese-Mandarin bilinguals and 31 Mandarin monolinguals were scanned in a 3-T magnetic resonance scanner at rest. 4 kinds of behavioral tasks of EF were tested. Network-based statistics (NBS) was performed to compare the connectomes of fronto-parietal (FP) and cingulo-opercular (CO) network between groups. The results showed that the bilinguals had stronger connectivity than monolinguals in a subnetwork located in the CO network rather than the FP network. The identified differential subnetwork referred to as the CO subnetwork contained 9 nodes and 10 edges, in which the center node was the left mid-insula with a degree centrality of 5. The functional connectivity of the CO subnetwork was significantly negatively correlated with interference effect in bilinguals. The results suggested that long-term Cantonese-Mandarin bilingual experience was associated with stronger functional connectivity underlying inhibitory control in the CO subnetwork.

Change Is Hard: Individual Differences in Children’s Lexical Processing and Executive Functions after a Shift in Dimensions

ABSTRACT Language comprehension involves cognitive abilities that are specific to language as well as cognitive abilities that are more general and involved in a wide range of behaviors. One set of domain-general abilities that support language comprehension are executive functions (EFs), also known as cognitive control. A diverse body of research has demonstrated that EFs support language comprehension when there is conflict between competing, incompatible interpretations of temporarily ambiguous words or phrases. By engaging EFs, children and adults are able to select or bias their attention toward the correct interpretation. However, the degree to which language processing engages EFs in the absence of ambiguity is poorly understood. In the current experiment, we tested whether EFs may be engaged when comprehending speech that does not elicit conflicting interpretations. Different components of EFs were measured using several behavioral tasks and language comprehension was measured using an eye-tracking procedure. Five-year-old children (n = 56) saw pictures of familiar objects and heard sentences identifying the objects using either their names or colors. After a series of objects were identified using one dimension, children were significantly less accurate in fixating target objects that were identified using a second dimension. Further results reveal that this decrease in accuracy does not occur because children struggle to shift between dimensions, but rather because they are unable to predict which dimension will be used. These effects of predictability are related to individual differences in children’s EFs. Taken together, these findings suggest that EFs may be more broadly involved when children comprehend language, even in instances that do not require conflict resolution.

The relationship of resting-state EEG oscillations to executive functions in middle childhood

Executive functions (EFs) play important roles in children's development, but their neural mechanisms are rarely investigated, especially for the different components of EFs in middle childhood. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the links between resting-state EEG in the frontal scalp region and EFs in children aged 7–9 years. Fifty-nine typically developing children from the second and third grades performed two core EF tasks, i.e., inhibition and working memory, and a high-level EF task, i.e., planning, followed by the recording of EEG signals during eyes-open and eyes-closed resting states. The results showed that distinct EEG activities in the frontal scalp region predicted different EF components. More specifically, after controlling for age and verbal ability, alpha to theta power ratio (ATR) and beta to theta power ratio (BTR) during the eyes-open resting state positively predicted inhibition, and beta to theta power ratio (BTR) during the eyes-open resting state positively predicted planning. However, we did not find any EEG features related to working memory. Our results contributed to the understanding of inter-individual differences in EFs and provided insights into the regulation of corresponding EEG activities through EEG neurofeedback for enhancing children's EFs.

Bilingualism, executive function, and beyond: Questions and insights ed. by Irina A. Sekerina et al.

Reviewed by: Bilingualism, executive function, and beyond: Questions and insightsed. by Irina A. Sekerina et al. Kenneth R. Paap Bilingualism, executive function, and beyond: Questions and insights. Ed. by I rinaA. S ekerina, L aurenS pradlin, and V irginiaV alian. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2019. Pp. 337. ISBN 9789027202437. $149 (Hb). The focus of Bilingualism, executive function, and beyondis the hypothesis that managing two languages requires domain-general executive functioning (EF) and that this ubiquitous practice leads to an enhancement of cognitive control. This hypothesis was first challenged in the context of a failed replication by Morton and Harper in 2007, and the ensuing debate continued to pick up steam for fifteen years and counting. The dominant view expressed throughout the book is that bilinguals do adapt to the demands of managing multiple languages and that these adaptations affect and enhance general control mechanisms. However, each bilingual's experience is distinctive, as determined by the specific languages acquired, the age of acquisition, the proficiency attained, the amount of use, and the pattern of use. The latter emphasizes a distinction between single-language contexts, where a single language dominates in each context (e.g. English at school, Spanish at home), and dual-language contexts, where there is frequent language switching depending upon changes in conversational partners or topics. With the further refinement and adoption of the theoretical framework that general cognitive control is best viewed as a set of interrelated component processes, one comes to appreciate that different types of bilinguals will recruit and strengthen different component processes of EF. Thus, another major theme of the book is that the hypothesis of a bilingual advantage in EF (the bilingual advantage hypothesis) cannot be tested with a simple comparison between bilinguals and monolinguals but must take the type of bilingual into account; this requires advances in the methods used to measure different facets of bilingualism and in the tasks used to measure different components of EF. The book does a good job of laying out this agenda, although there is no attempt to integrate the separate [End Page 836]chapters into something like a continuous narrative that tells this story. This is not surprising given the book's origin, as briefly described next. The book's genesis was a 2015 NSF-sponsored workshop held at the CUNY Graduate Center. Eleven papers from that workshop were published in 2016 as a special issue of Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism. They constitute a little more than half of the contents of this volume. Nine posters from the workshop were written up as articles and form the rest of the book. Unfortunately, the time between the development of these papers and their appearance in this book means that the book was not able to benefit from advances in research and theory over the intervening years. During this time the vigorous debate about the bilingual advantage hypothesis has grown more intense, as new empirical studies and reviews seem to appear by the dozen every month. A potential weakness of the book is that it will mislead a new generation of researchers into adopting the view that evidence has confirmed the hypothesis that bilingualism enhances components of general EF. In the remainder of this review I make the case that the narrative is too rosy and incomplete. The critique is organized with respect to four issues: (i) new meta-analyses paint a very pessimistic picture for the bilingual advantage hypothesis, (ii) the presumption that domain-general executive control exists may be false, (iii) despite intensive effort, the necessary and sufficient conditions for generating bilingual advantages are nowhere in sight, and (iv) Ellen Bialystok's (e.g. 2016) program for separating signal from noise took some dubious steps and has not been successful. M eta-analyses do not support the hypothesis The book presents a distorted and incomplete view of the evidence because it fails to take into account the recent march of formal metaanalyses (von Bastian et al. 2017, Lehtonen et al. 2018, Donnelly et al. 2019, Paap 2019, Gunnerud et al. 2020, Lowe et al. 2021, Monnier et al. 2021) that cast the relevant research in a new light. A broad summary is...

Nature and Correlates of Executive Dysfunction in Schizophrenia: An Exploratory Study.

Background:Executive function (EF) impairment has been demonstrated in patients with schizophrenia. This study attempted to examine the clinical and demographic correlates associated with the different components of EF in these patients using a comprehensive battery of neuropsychological tests.Materials and Methods:Consecutive inpatients with schizophrenia in remission were recruited. The following instruments were administered: (a) Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), (b)World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0, (c) Tower of London, (d) Stroop Test, (e) Controlled Oral Word Association Test, (f) Animal Names Test, and (g) Verbal N-Back Test. Sociodemographic and clinical details were also recorded. Data was analyzed using standard bivariate and multivariate statistics.Results:A total of 50 patients were recruited. The mean age of the population was 30 years (standard deviation [SD]: 7.74). The majority were male, literate, single, from a rural background, from a middle socioeconomic background, and unemployed. The mean dose of antipsychotic medication was 618.57 mg (SD: 282.08) of chlorpromazine equivalents per day. Impairment was found in the different sub-components of EF. On multivariate analysis, factors significantly associated with executive dysfunction were lower education, unemployment, lower income, positive PANSS score, higher antipsychotic dose, and history of treatment with electroconvulsive therapy.Conclusion:EFs encompass a wide range of cognitive processes that influence an individual’s ability to adapt and function in the society. These are often impaired in patients with schizophrenia. Clinicians need to be aware of these deficits and factors associated with them, to plan appropriate and effective remedial measures.

Functional connectivity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex contributes to different components of executive functions

ObjectiveThe dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) orchestrates other brain regions and plays a vital role for “the most uniquely human” executive functions (EFs), which are divided into distinct components. Components of EFs have been localized to different brain regions and at the same time the DLPFC was found to be involved in a majority of EF components. The possible mechanism of the DLPFC's contribution to EF components might be found in DLPFC functional connectivity (FC): this FC of the DLPFC with other brain regions contributes to different EF components. MethodTo explore the DLPFC FC contribution to different EFs, we used an integrative approach involving analysis of fMRI and neuropsychological assessment of EFs. Fifty healthy adults (27 females and 23 males, mean age 34.5 ± 16.6 years) underwent neuropsychological assessment of EFs as well as task-based and resting-state fMRI. Task-based fMRI was applied as a functional localizer for individually defined DLPFC ROIs that were further used for the FC seed-based correlation analysis of the resting-state data. Then we looked for associations between individual scores of different EF components and the whole-brain resting-state FC of the DLPFC. ResultsResting-state correlates of DLPFC FC were revealed for three out of the seven EF components derived from an extensive neuropsychological assessment: inhibition, switching, and the verbal EF component. ConclusionsOur study is the first to reveal the contribution of the DLPFC FC to several distinct EF components. The obtained results give insight into the brain mechanisms of EFs.

Studying executive functions in senior preschoolers.

This study analyzed connections between different components of executive functions (EF; inhibition, working memory, cognitive flexibility) among 1,075 preschool children in Moscow. The results suggested greater heterochronicity in different EF component levels for girls compared with boys. Factor analysis showed the best fit for a three‐factor model.

Rumination and executive functions: Understanding cognitive vulnerability for psychopathology

IntroductionBoth rumination, a pattern of repetitive, self-focused thought in response to distress, and deficits in executive functions (EFs), a set of cognitive abilities that facilitate higher-order thinking, have transdiagnostic associations with psychopathology. Although empirical studies suggest associations between EFs and rumination, this literature has not examined subtypes of rumination and different components of EFs. It also has not examined whether rumination and EFs explain overlapping variance in psychopathology, which is relevant to theoretical models suggesting that rumination might mediate the EF–psychopathology association. MethodsWe used structural equation modeling to examine the association between latent factors for two types of rumination (anger and depressive) and three components of EF (a Common EF factor, and factors specific to updating working memory and shifting mental sets) and whether they independently relate to internalizing and externalizing psychopathology in a population sample of 764 young adults (mean age 23 years) from the Colorado Longitudinal Twin Study. ResultsDepressive and Anger Rumination showed small correlations with a Common EF factor (rs = –.09 to –.11). Anger Rumination and Common EF ability were associated with independent variance in externalizing psychopathology, whereas Depressive Rumination, but not Common EF, was associated with internalizing psychopathology. LimitationsExamination of cross-sectional relations in a population sample led to low symptom endorsement for psychopathology and necessitated examination of lifetime, rather than past-year, psychopathology. ConclusionsInconsistent with mediation hypotheses, Common EF abilities and rumination are correlated yet largely independent constructs that both predict psychopathology.

Global and Specific Profiles of Executive Functioning in Prodromal and Early Psychosis.

Objective: Numerous reports on neurocognitive functioning deficits in individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) and first-episode psychosis (FEP) patients suggest particular deficits in executive functioning (EF). However, to date, most of the studies have administered a single or a few EF tests to participants, and few investigations have examined the different components of EF to identify specific subdomains of relative strength and weakness. Method: Forty CHR subjects, 85 FEP patients, and 85 healthy controls (HCs) were assessed with a neuropsychological battery to elucidate the profiles of EF in the subdomains of shift, attention, fluency, and planning. Results: In the subdomains of shift, attention, and fluency, CHR individuals and FEP patients showed deficits compared to HC. The post hoc analysis revealed that CHR individuals had comparable attention shifting and phonemic fluency compared to FEP. CHR showed intermediate deficits between FEP and HCs in spatial working memory and semantic fluency, and the largest effect size was observed in semantic fluency both for CHR and FEP. Conclusion: Overall, the findings of this study, in addition to providing detailed profiles of EF in prodromal and early psychosis patients, highlight the informative value of the specific subdomains of semantic fluency and spatial working memory.

More than number sense: The additional role of executive functions and metacognition in arithmetic

Arithmetic is a major building block for children’s development of more complex mathematical abilities. Knowing which cognitive factors underlie individual differences in arithmetic is key to gaining further insight into children’s mathematical development. The current study investigated the role of executive functions and metacognition (domain-general cognitive factors) as well as symbolic numerical magnitude processing (domain-specific cognitive factor) in arithmetic, enabling the investigation of their unique contribution in addition to each other. Participants were 127 typically developing second graders (7- and 8-year-olds). Our within-participant design took into account different components of executive functions (i.e., inhibition, shifting, and updating), different aspects of metacognitive skills (i.e., task-specific and general metacognition), and different levels of experience in arithmetic, namely addition (where second graders had extensive experience) and multiplication (where second graders were still in the learning phase). This study reveals that both updating and metacognitive monitoring are important unique predictors of arithmetic in addition to each other and to symbolic numerical magnitude processing. Our results point to a strong and unique role of task-specific metacognitive monitoring skills. These individual differences in noticing one’s own errors might help one to learn from his or her mistakes.