Executive Functions in Digital Games

Background

‘Executive functions’ are not straightforward to define. In early theoretical accounts, such as that of Baddeley and Hitch (1974), the central executive was conceptualised as a unitary system. However, the unitary concept of the central executive has undergone ‘fractionation’ (Baddeley & Della Sala, 1996, p. 1402) into a much wider range of processes which are subsumed under the term ‘executive function’. For example, Miyake, Friedman, Emerson, Witzki, & Howerter (2000) carried out a confirmatory factor analysis of performance data from adults and found evidence for inter-related but dissociable contributions from the executive functions of shifting of attention, updating of working memory representations, and inhibition. Andersson (2008) offers an even more fine-grained analysis: ‘The key elements of executive function include (a) anticipation and deployment of attention; (b) impulse control and self-regulation; (c) initiation of activity; (d) working memory; (e) mental flexibility and utilisation of feedback; (f) planning ability and organisation; and (g) selection of efficient problem solving strategies’ (Andersson, 2008, p. 4).