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In this article we provide a tutorial review of various theoretical issues that surround executive function research from the perspective of cognitive psychology, focusing on issues that have important implications for clinical assessment of executive functioning. We first discuss theoretical and clinical reasons for the importance of understanding executive functions and then point out some serious problems with the common practice of relying exclusively on complex neuropsychological tests, such as the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and the Tower of Hanoi, as general measures of executive functioning. We then briefly present a recent individual differences study of executive functions conducted in our laboratory that attempted to overcome certain limitations associated with the more typical approach. On the basis of the theoretical issues discussed and the results from our study, we offer some concrete suggestions and recommendations for the measurement and assessment of executive functions in clinical settings.

Field dependence-independence (FDI) is a construct intensively investigated within cognitive style research, but its cognitive underpinnings are not clearly specified. We propose that performance on FDI tasks primarily reflects the operations of the visuospatial and executive components of working memory. We tested this hypothesis in a dual-task experiment with a commonly used measure of FDI, the Hidden Figures Test. The results showed that performance on this test was impaired by concurrent performance of secondary tasks that primarily tap the visuospatial component (spatial tapping) and the executive component (2-back and random number generation), but was almost unaffected by other secondary tasks (simple tapping and articulatory suppression). Moreover, an analysis of secondary task performance ruled out the possibility of strategic trade-offs and revealed an intriguing dissociation for two different sets of "randomness" indices for the random number generation task. These results support the hypothesised mapping between FDI and working memory components and suggest that the dual-task paradigm can provide a useful way to bring underspecified constructs like FDI into closer alignment with theoretical ideas developed within cognitive psychology.

This study examined individual differences in the abilities to integrate and coordinate multiple sources of information. In 2 experiments, participants performed complex tasks that required the simultaneous processing of 2 sources of information, visuospatial and verbal, which were either related (for integration tasks) or unrelated (for coordination tasks). They also performed the component tasks (i.e., visuospatial and verbal tasks) by themselves. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the integration and coordination tasks each require an additional ability beyond the abilities to perform component tasks individually and that these integration and coordination abilities are closely related to each other. Experiment 2, which manipulated the stimulus onset asynchronies between visuospatial and verbal stimuli, further supported these conclusions and also demonstrated that the integration and coordination abilities are closely linked to the processing overlap of the 2 information sources.People are constantly receiving information from different sources. For example, air traffic controllers must integrate the information from a visual display with the verbal reports they receive from airplane pilots. Carrying on a conversation while driving a car also requires the management of verbal as well as visuospatial and motor information. Thus, the ability to integrate and coordinate these multiple sources of information simultaneously seems to play a crucial role in many types of situations.Previous research has focused on two similar yet conceptually distinct types of situations that require the simultaneous management of multiple information sources. One type of situation, referred to as coordination in this article, is the so-called dual-task paradigm in which participants perform two tasks simultaneously. The two tasks can be of the same modality or of different modalities, but the key

Caplan & Waters's arguments for separate working memory subsystems for “interpretive” and “post-interpretive” comprehension processes do not have a solid empirical basis. The likely involvement of a separate phonological loop makes their memory-load data irrelevant to theory evaluation, and the lack of statistical power from nonoptimal experimental designs and analyses unfairly reduces the chances of detecting the relevant interactions.