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Encyclopedia of Geropsychology pp 1–11Cite as

Executive Functioning

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Synonyms

Central executive; Controlled processing; Response inhibition; Set-shifting; Working memory updating

Definition

Executive functioning is an important concept in neuropsychology and broadly refers to our ability to plan and coordinate complex behavior. The term is used widely in describing performance on cognitive tasks that require planning, strategy use, self-regulation, focused attention, inhibition, and other supervisory functions.

Executive Functioning

Our executive functions allow us to organize the actions of lower-level cognitive processes in order to behave flexibly in the face of an ever-changing environment. A multitude of complex cognitive tasks have been developed to assess executive functioning, and healthy aging appears to impair performance on many of these measures. While it has often been proposed that executive functioning reflects the operation of a number of subprocesses, such as planning, strategy use, self-regulation, focused attention, and so on, the...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, and Human Cognitive Neuroscience, The University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9JZ, UK

    Stephen Rhodes & Mario A. Parra

  2. Department of Psychology, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, EH14 4AS, UK

    Mario A. Parra

  3. Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Research Centre, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Mario A. Parra

  4. UDP-INECO Foundation Core on Neuroscience (UIFCoN), Diego Portales University, Santiago, Chile

    Mario A. Parra

Authors
  1. Stephen Rhodes
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  2. Mario A. Parra
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stephen Rhodes .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Nancy A. Pachana

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© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore

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Rhodes, S., Parra, M.A. (2016). Executive Functioning. In: Pachana, N. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geropsychology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-080-3_275-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-080-3_275-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-287-080-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Social SciencesReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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