Metaphors and models of executive functioning: Comment on Giancola (2000)

Clinical researchers have become increasingly interested in considering the role of normal and impaired executive functioning in psychopathology. The concept of executive functions is, however, often used as a metaphor for a wide range of operations that may, on the one hand, be distinct from one another, but also may be integrated in various ways under different information-processing conditions. A clinician's perspective of executive functioning should rake full advantage of the rich body of data and theory that has developed in contemporary cognitive neuroscience around functions such as forms of inhibition and controlled (in contrast to automatic) functions, in a variety of cognitive domains such as making decisions and tracking performance.