Types of executive functions

Executive functions can be divided into organizational and regulatory abilities. Organization includes gathering information and structuring it for evaluation. Regulation involves evaluating the available information and modulating your responses to the environment. Seeing a wonderful dessert in front of you may be tempting to devour, but your executive system might remind you that eating it would conflict with your inner goals, such as losing weight. That long range thinking and reasoning is typical of the executive system. One type of executive function is called prospective memory, the ability to project into the future and solve problems that are likely to arise.

• Organization: attention, planning, sequencing, problem solving, working memory, cognitive flexibility, abstract thinking, rule acquisition, selecting relevant sensory information
• Regulation: initiation of action, self-control, emotional regulation, monitoring internal and external stimuli, initiating and inhibiting context-specific behavior, moral reasoning, decision-making