Cognitive Control in the Service of Self-Regulation

Glossary Cognitive control – The organization of thoughts, behaviors, and emotions to achieve selected goals. Conflict – The cognitive state that arises from competition between different behavioral options when only one option may be selected. Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex – An area of the prefrontal cortex that comprises Brodmann’s areas 9 and 46 and that subserves working memory and topdown attention. Response inhibition – Inhibition of behavioral responses that are goal or task irrelevant. Self-regulation – It encompasses cognitive control as well as the selection of goals and their interactions with current and learned parental, social, and cultural influences. Striatum – The major input structure of the basal ganglia, consisting of the caudate nucleus and putamen. Portions of the striatum are important for the encoding of well-learned motor and cognitive tasks. Stroop Task – Cognitive task in which each trial consists of a colored word. In congruent trials, the ink color is the same as the color that the word denotes. In incongruent trials, the ink color differs from the color that the word denotes. The subject’s task is to name the ink color. The conflict inherent in incongruent trials causes participants to take longer to respond and make more errors on those trials than on congruent ones. Top-down attention – Goal-driven selection of taskrelevant stimuli or features that may not be the most salient and might, therefore, not be attended otherwise. Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex – An area of the prefrontal cortex that comprises Brodmann’s area 47 and that is important for response inhibition.