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2 references
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- Vol 4 RE: Chapter 3
executive functionsinhibitory controlworking memorycognitive flexibilityprefrontal developmentcognitive trainingemotional wellbeingJournal article Evidence summaryAt a glance
Diamond reviews executive functions, the control processes that enable goal-directed thought and action. Three core functions are inhibitory control, which supports resisting impulses and selective attention; working memory, which keeps and manipulates information; and cognitive flexibility, which permits switching perspectives or strategies.
Key ideas
Higher-order reasoning, planning, and problem solving build on these foundations. Executive functions depend substantially on prefrontal systems, develop through childhood into early adulthood, and are sensitive to stress, sleep, loneliness, physical health, and emotional state. They predict important academic and life outcomes but are trainable to some extent. Programmes show the greatest benefits for learners with weaker initial skills, and gains require repeated challenge and practice; narrow training may not transfer broadly.
Why it matters
Diamond highlights approaches combining cognitive challenge with movement, play, mindfulness, arts, or supportive social participation. Educationally, the review favours safe relationships, manageable challenge, active practice, and attention to physical and emotional wellbeing rather than expecting executive control to improve through decontextualised drills alone.
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- Vol 1 RE: Chapter 6
long-term working memoryskilled memoryretrieval cuesdomain-specific knowledgeexpert performancemeaningful encodingJournal article Evidence summaryAt a glance
Ericsson and Kintsch propose long-term working memory to explain how skilled people handle information demands that exceed the limited temporary capacity of conventional working memory. With extensive domain knowledge and practice, performers encode task information into long-term memory while maintaining retrieval cues in short-term memory.
Key ideas
These cues permit rapid, reliable access to relevant stored information during an ongoing activity. The framework extends skilled-memory theory and is applied to text comprehension and expert performance in domains including mental calculation, chess, and medical diagnosis. Long-term working memory is domain-specific: it depends on acquired knowledge, familiar task structures, meaningful encoding, and retrieval organisations rather than a general expansion of short-term capacity. Access can be disrupted when task conditions prevent use of established cues.
Why it matters
The theory helps explain how experts maintain coherence across complex material and resume interrupted reasoning. Educationally, it suggests that fluent performance grows from organised knowledge and practised retrieval structures, not from training a context-free memory capacity in isolation.
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Edition abbreviations
- TE
- Teacher Edition
- PE
- Practice Edition
- RE
- Research Edition
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