Executive Function: Debunking an Overprized Construct

This paper explores the structure of executive functions, the common core underlying them, their development, and their relations with fluid reasoning. We reanalysed several studies which examined aspects of attention control, cognitive flexibility, working memory, relational integration, perceptual and inferential awareness, and reasoning from 4 to 16 years of age. We show that attention control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory are distinct but they share a common factor. This factor is completely identical with an integral construct standing for relational integration and awareness, suggesting that executive function does not have much beyond this construct. Developmental changes in executive function are heavily dependent on this construct. These changes are formalized in terms of series of syntactic rules defining executive possibilities from 4 to 16 years of age and in terms of a mathematical function defining how they relate with age. The theoretical and practical implications of this model are discussed.