Reevaluating executive function

Executive function — the cognitive mechanisms through which the human mind directs behaviors and regulates thoughts and actions — have been extensively analyzed using a standardized set of tools, which are incorporated into both national and international norms for child development.

A recent study conducted with children in both educational and non-educational settings, published in *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences*, challenges several assumptions central to how psychologists and cognitive science scholars perceive these processes.

Rather than defining an essential, inherent quality of human cognition, it appears that the executive functions represented in these evaluations are more likely influenced by formal education.

The research, titled “The cultural construction of ‘executive function,’” examined children in the Kunene region of Africa, which includes Namibia and Angola, alongside children from the U.K. and Bolivia. The children in rural Kunene who had minimal or no formal education exhibited significant differences in perceived executive function performance compared to their educated counterparts, or a “typical” Western-schooled group.

“Almost all developmental research focuses on children raised in a schooled environment,” noted Joseph Henrich, Ruth Moore Professor of Evolutionary Biology, whose Culture, Cognition, and Culture lab in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology supervised the study. Talking about Kunene, he stated, “We ventured to a location where a sort of natural experiment exists, featuring communities with no schools and some with schools. This enables us to compare the cognitive progression of the children. Our observations show that conventional executive function development is primarily found in locations with schools rather than those without. This indicates that the essence of executive function is deeply tied to schooling.”

“What has been regarded as a broadly applicable phenomenon called ‘executive function’ is actually quite specific to the skill set needed to navigate school and educated environments.”

Testing executive function, Henrich continued, often entails tasks like memorizing lists of unrelated words. However, children with limited formal education may not identify these words since such lists are absent in their surroundings.

Nevertheless, the researchers contended that the inherent cognitive abilities of children lacking formal education were not diminished—they were simply employed differently.

“In the communities we studied, individuals have exceptional abilities in remembering livestock,” he mentioned. “They can observe the herd, recount how many cows are present, name each cow, and even identify ownership by recognizing the faces of the cows. I would wager that if I conducted a similar test with children in Boston, they would struggle to distinguish cows.”

The researchers clarified that executive function does exist. Instead, they argue it is necessary to acknowledge that what has been evaluated does not encapsulate overall cognitive control.

“We must reconsider our approach to human psychology,” asserted Henrich, indicating that much of what is perceived as typical cognitive development stems primarily from formal education.

Ivan Kroupin, the main author of the paper and a former postdoctoral researcher in Henrich’s laboratory, expounded: “The phrase ‘executive function’ denotes a series of abilities and tendencies that are, to a large extent, cultural in nature.” Kroupin, who is currently at the London School of Economics and co-led the field studies with Helen Elizabeth Davis from Arizona State University, remarked, “Our research implies that the skills these tasks necessitate are partly universal and partly cultural, likely linked to formal education or additional institutions and experiences in urbanized settings.”

The results advocate for a reconsideration of terms such as “executive functions” for a clearer depiction of what these functionalities entail.

“We can utilize the term ‘executive functions’ to denote underlying universal capabilities,” Kroupin explained. However, “If that is the case, we require a distinct term for the ensemble of both universal and culture-specific capabilities that traditional EF tasks are assessing.”