Moderator note: This is a thread Scuro requested a decade ago. .it is taken from the Original Einstein thread.....well actually copied from what is now NOT Einstein......some edited was done to the original and other so the main topic could be derived---which is executive functions by the way! I do try to fulfill my promises!
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Off the top of my head, the documented impairments with executive functions of the brain would not fit with this sort of theory. Why should creativity impair our behaviour? Why would our sense of time, that is...planning to act in the future based on what we have learned from the past be impaired by creativity? You hear parents of ADHD kids complain about this all the time, "that kid just doesn't seem to learn". They arn't talkin about algebra, rather that the kid does the same stupid behaviour over and and over again. You can talk till you are blue in the face and they won't frequently internalize what you have told them. You would think that creativity should enhance that brain function.

Furthermore, why would creativity impair internalized speech? You would think that internalized speech would be a tool of creativity yet this ability is impaired in kids with ADHD. Their behaviour is not as well controlled by their internal voice. Why should creativity hamper someone's ability to complete a task? ...or follow directions and rules? ADHDers are living in the moment because their internalized voice is impaired in it's ability to control behaviour in the present. The "lets go ride bikes", joke that is currently making the rounds illustrates this perfectly. Hey kid what does ADHD stand for? Attention deficit...hey, lets go ride bikes!!!

Finally creativity shouldn't hamper our ability to control our emotions. We know that folks with ADHD have great difficulty internalizing their emotions....think road rage. These kids are reacting in the moment with little thought to the consequences of their behaviour. Norms can shield their true feelings from others better. That is a plus in society because frequent displays of anger and frustration do not endear you to your peers. You are overreacting and that is about as desirable a behaviour as frequent farting. ADHDers wear their emotions on their sleeves. What does this have to do with creativity?

These are serious impairments which make life much more difficult for those with ADHD.

Ahhh!!!
Bbbb!!! Cccc!!! ... ... until ... ... Zeee!!! (where it all goes wrong).
It's Zeddd!!! and not Zeee!!!
And EFff is Zeee!!! and not Zeddd!!!
Do Uccc???

Good ADDers need to know why.
Why is the sky blue?
Why is the grass green?
Why do fools fall in love?
Y O Y ... Ohhh Yyyy ...?

SB.

Your observations are accurate, the explanations offered by EF are inaccurate.
You'll know most of the alter-explanations for your observations from threads long-gone, but just to add, that yes, absolutely, I believe in them to the extent that I can say that they are correct ... :-) ... and so will we all (soon) ... why??? ... because all that is required is a slight shift which'll incorporate all of your suggestions above, that is, on the idea of creativity unlocked through some structural component of ming (*mind* - I can't bring myself to correct this typo), alongside the nature of the structure and the shape of the structure ... and well ... 'That's all folks!!!' ... Bugs dives down through his rabbit hole, only to emerge out of the other end at precisely the same time ... 'No, that's not right' ... 'That's not right, at all' ... ... ...

What? Have I actually stumbled onto a concise definition of what Stabile and you believe to be "metalevels"? :p Say it isn't so, I've sifted through acres and acres of words and this is it? !???!!???
‘Metalevels’ are just a logical property, and we can’t take any responsibility for their existence. But the way you and a few others use the term, it becomes a general description of the theories we’ve proposed that depend (in part) on an awareness of relative metalevel.

And in that regard, it’s pretty close. The problem many have grasping it is the fact that such a small difference in the way information is organized causes dramatic new properties to emerge.

It doesn’t help that what that emergence reveals doesn’t immediately seem proportionate. The greater implications are appropriately dramatic, a speciation event. But that’s of more interest to future historians, not so obviously dramatic to those living through it.

So (provisionally) yeah, you’ve got a bead in it. It really is pretty simple.


But, what I wrote has little to do with disorders of the brain, because many are creative who are not ADHD…
Good question. The short answer is that logical structures define the operation of almost all functions in the brain.*

Fool around with the form, and you can affect almost anything. And we don’t have to use the new logical form universally; we see it applied in lots of different ways, each with it’s own unique effects.

That’s not quite the whole picture; we need to account for the effect of the collection of drives and instincts we call the social impulse, intended to ensure we’re all normal.

Any change in the logical form can activate the social impulse, and the resulting interactions are often what bring about the behavioral and experiential artifacts we associate with disorder.


And what does what I wrote, have to do with the next speciation event?
That’s defined by the emergent nature of the effects of adding metalevels to our internal bag of logical tricks.


Ahhh!!!, ....perhaps you think that the ADHD really is nothing more then an extraneous term for the hardwiring of the brain to be creative. Well, why didn't you say so :p :)?
Now I know you’re being funny. Who suggested brains are hardwired to be creative?


Off the top of my head, the documented impairments with executive functions of the brain would not fit with this sort of theory…
(grins…) Right you are. We’re pretty sure the linguistic framework that includes ‘the executive’ doesn‘t translate into actual neural structures. It was never intended to, anyway. It was supposed to help in analyzing external observable patterns in behavior.

The problem is neural structures don’t work in the way the organization of the original linguistic framework suggests. It was just a convenience, related more to how we view the organization of a hypothetical command structure.


Why should creativity impair our behaviour? Why would our sense of time, that is...planning to act in the future based on what we have learned from the past be impaired by creativity?
It doesn’t. But using the newer form of logical structure doesn’t only affect the way we form new models. It also changes the way the models that define behavior work. The models are correct, but different, and the difference activates the social impulse.

The ability to apply metalevels is just a tool. It’s clearly useful in certain situations, but can have the drawbacks that come with adopting anything new.


You hear parents of ADHD kids complain about this all the time, "that kid just doesn't seem to learn". They arn't talkin about algebra, rather that the kid does the same stupid behaviour over and and over again. You can talk till you are blue in the face and they won't frequently internalize what you have told them. You would think that creativity should enhance that brain function.
Yup, but it’s not the same application of the tool.

The appearance that AD/HD kids stubbornly or blindly repeat the same self-destructive patterns of behavior is a huge clue. In every example we’ve analyzed, the underlying decisions are correct, but the framework that has developed is skewed. That framework is a product of social interactions during the process of enculturation; in other words, it’s taught.

You might conclude something kept the kid from learning correctly, but in most cases this faculty, too, is functioning in a perfectly rational way. The problem at the root is that we can have two representations of information that are both correct, yet appear different in subtle ways.

I teach you some set of facts, and you store them in a logical structure. If I find your stored version to be incorrect, I can teach you the material again. But if the difference is only that, a difference, brought about by the method you use to store the information, is letting you store it a second time likely to change anything?

Being different is a big piece of the puzzle, too. But then you knew that.


Furthermore, why would creativity impair internalized speech? You would think that internalized speech would be a tool of creativity yet this ability is impaired in kids with ADHD…
In some AD/HD kids, not all. And the definition of ‘internalized speech’ leaves a lot to be desired once you begin to appreciate how neural mechanisms work. It’s likely a derivative artifact of other processes.


Their behaviour is not as well controlled by their internal voice.
… and right there is the problem. Control is control; it either exists, or it doesn’t. In terms of the logical function of neural structures, there isn’t any halfway. All neural structures seek the most appropriate response; it’s their only trick. So you can be certain that if they function at all, they’re working correctly.

So it’s the result of a correct operation that appears to be flawed, and looking for how that operation fails to be correct is a waste of time. What we need to determine is why the correct operation of the AD/HD kid’s neural structures resulted in behavior that appears incorrect.

That said, I should say that the concept of the ‘internal voice’ is likely only a slightly skewed representation of the normal activity that gives rise to conscious awareness. This is certainly driven by the social impulse, which is likely the original (and perhaps the only) source.

Its purpose is to allow us to communicate using the common model of reality; the drive to be normal and seek normalcy in others is intimately related to our sense of the stability of reality itself.


Why should creativity hamper someone's ability to complete a task? ...or follow directions and rules? ADHDers are living in the moment because their internalized voice is impaired in it's ability to control behaviour in the present. The "lets go ride bikes", joke that is currently making the rounds illustrates this perfectly. Hey kid what does ADHD stand for? Attention deficit...hey, lets go ride bikes!!!

Finally creativity shouldn't hamper our ability to control our emotions. We know that folks with ADHD have great difficulty internalizing their emotions....think road rage. These kids are reacting in the moment with little thought to the consequences of their behaviour. Norms can shield their true feelings from others better. That is a plus in society because frequent displays of anger and frustration do not endear you to your peers. You are overreacting and that is about as desirable a behaviour as frequent farting. ADHDers wear their emotions on their sleeves. What does this have to do with creativity?

These are serious impairments which make life much more difficult for those with ADHD.
Granted, but as I’ve outlined above they don’t really arise in the simple direct way your model supposes.

When we get to the logical level at which behavior (and meaning itself) is defined, brains don’t fail halfway. Neural structures don’t make bad decisions; they make correct decisions based on bad information, which is as likely to be a sense that you don’t care what that decision is (if you’re a parent), or that you do care, but no decision will ultimately be correct in your eyes.

The same complex circumstances apply in school, or at work. And the determination of correctness may hinge only on whether your models are of a different form. Not being normal is often viewed as a more serious defect than outright factual error.

I teach you some set of facts, and you store them in a logical structure. If I find your stored version to be incorrect, is letting you store it a second time likely to change anything?

Nobody said it would be easy….

Tom and Kay


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* Let’s not jump the gun and assign the disorders we’ve been discussing to physical causes just yet.

Everything we’ve mentioned with regard to AD/HD is defined in terms of externally observable behavior. At best we can only say they reflect the operation of the brain, which when it comes to high-level behavior is obviously defined logically.

That subtle transition from physically to logically defined function puts us in a situation that might very well be affected if we change the form of the structure that defines that logical operation.

We don’t choose to behave in a certain way because neurons fire in a particular pattern; we make the choice based on the meaning of that pattern in the logical context it’s defined. Regardless of whether we appear to choose wisely or poorly, the decision is based on logical function.

Outright failure (which does occur) is obvious: no choice is made. And although it’s possible for physical causes to affect the outcome of the logical operation, it’s difficult to imagine how they would easily account for the delicate effects typical in AD/HD.

The behavioral differences we experience seem huge, but compared to the infinite number of ways things could screw up, they’re almost trivial.

Since the logical operation is also subject to logical effects, which are directly related to the delicate behavioral artifacts we observe, a possible logical cause seems a much more attractive explanation.

And since we know the logical differences exist, it also seems reasonable to look at what effects they have, if for no other reason than to eliminate them from the rest of the equation when we look for possible physical causes.

Open up a computer and look at the chip under a magnifying glass.
The play 'Doom', and then browse through to the 'Forum' and then fire up 'Word' ... no matter how hard one looks at the chip with a 'looking glass', one will not see the changes which accompany switching between software of markedly different functionalities.
So switching the looking glass would seem sensible, and is all that is being suggested ... in this case, perhaps, switching on the montitor is enough :-)
This is an analogue of brain/mind, where brain is kinda' the chip ... and mind is kinda' the software ... with the analogy to mind/brain centred on different layers of abstraction.

So ... EF, remember the ZelazoZelazi review publication from T'ronto Uni ... remember the Intro sentence ... quote kinda' like --->
-~-
'EF is a poorly defined descriptive framework' "for the stuff that the mind does 'cos at this moment, and I'm being honest here, we don't have much of a clue"
-~-
Software running on hardware ... 'Word' running on a 'Pentium' chip ... is an illustration of different layers ... physical layer and the higher logical layer.
The 'logical' is often called 'virtual' ... the 'virtual' of 'virtual rrreality'.

Higher has nothing to do with a bearded chappie sitting on a cloud, as has recently been suggested.
Logical has nothing to do with spiritual.

Just plain, old sadly, quite boring terms ... the appearance of magic comes later ... through emergence.

SB.

I will respond to the direct questions. What I have posted can stand by itself.


If I am impaired in executive functioning i.e. my executive is like out to lunch then who is at the helm when I am writing this while talking on phone?

EF's is not your total brain. EF's control your behaviour by using learning from the past and projecting behaviour into the future. Most animals don't have EF's, yet they function fine. If your EF's were totally disabled you would live in the moment, as say your dog does.

Listening to two different conversations and processing both? If indeed I am executively dysfunctional why is it I can do two task more effectively than a single boring one…If indeed my executive is out to lunch could it be the way to get him back to work is to make it more interesting=multi-tasking=under arousal seeks arousal= day dream=risk taking behavior = the question who is controlling all this internal traffic?

Things in the moment are not governed as much by EF's. Individual functions can be done just fine...and yes more interesting will capture your attention of the moment better. Interesting is more rewarding....it gives you that immediate feedback/ stimulus that ADHDers love.

I wonder about the effect of ADHD on my executive functions. I am able to read aloud to my class, while checking e-mail, and grading papers when not on meds. While on meds I can only do one of those at a time.

While it is generally a postitive thing to be able to focus on one task, less mistakes that way, I can get more accomplished when multitasking!

Scuro,
thank you for bringing up the idea of organization of thoughts.

I'm like Chameleon in that I am intelligent and able to understand things well. My difficulty is the length and structure of many posts.

Maybe a way to help all who wish to participate would also be to alter the font in some way to note main ideas. When I make long posts, I use smilies to break it up as well as bold and underline my main points.

Although Tammy's posts tend to be long, I find them fairly easy to read because she talks off of her quotes. No offense intended to others, but it is difficult to read some people's posts.

While it is generally a postitive thing to be able to focus on one task, less mistakes that way, I can get more accomplished when multitasking!
I face that paradox, too.

I'm actually still able to multitask, but it I don't do so automatically as I did before meds. I am much more detailed now & the quality of my work has skyrocketed, but the quantity.... :(

I wonder about the effect of ADHD on my executive functions. I am able to read aloud to my class, while checking e-mail, and grading papers when not on meds. While on meds I can only do one of those at a time.

While it is generally a postitive thing to be able to focus on one task, less mistakes that way, I can get more accomplished when multitasking!
Many of us have noticed that effect. But it’s something you can learn to control; once you get the trick, you’ll find it’s more like the drugs give you a choice about when and how you multitask. They don’t necessarily keep you from doing it.

Some find it easier to switch back and forth without the drugs after some experience, too; our son Bryan pretty much avoids drugs now except at rare moments like taking tests, but he’s able to do most of what he learned with them.

It doesn’t seem to be a permanent change in the brain so much as a learned familiarity with the modes of thought that bring about the effect. But heck, that’s a permanent change anyway, isn’t it? (grins…)


I'm like Chameleon in that I am intelligent and able to understand things well. My difficulty is the length and structure of many posts.

Maybe a way to help all who wish to participate would also be to alter the font in some way to note main ideas. When I make long posts, I use smilies to break it up as well as bold and underline my main points.
(grins…)

My technical writing professor had a particular bug about that. Research shows that underlining, bolding, changing fonts and the like only detract from readability.

Comprehension and speed are both impacted, and a significant percentage of the population finds the distraction annoying.

We certainly do, but enforcing style in a casual forum like this would be unfair, so we don’t usually mention it. We do remove the unnecessary formatting when we quote text, though, so it won’t detract from what we’re presenting.


Although Tammy's posts tend to be long, I find them fairly easy to read because she talks off of her quotes. No offense intended to others, but it is difficult to read some people's posts.
Everybody has difficulty with some styles, and it’s nice you feel comfortable with Tammy’s.

It’s changed a lot in the time we’ve known her, incidentally; it used to be a lot more like ours, but with fewer paragraphs. Stream of consciousness be thy name…

Then SB started playing games with words and letters, and she hasn’t been the same since. (grins…)

Style is personal, and it would be impossible for all of us to write like Tammy, or anyone else, for that matter. We’re individuals, and most of us are pretty stubborn about it.

Generally, when you want to get to the information presented, style doesn’t stop anybody.

Being openly critical about a particular style is a little rude, like publicly saying you don’t like certain individuals because of the color of their skin. Fortunately, you don’t have to face that sort of thing in these forums; we’re all equal here…

EF is impaired, not absent. Also, EF is not what you are referring to in your examples…
We were going to post something about that, to the effect that what Tammy’s asking about isn’t really what researchers mean when they talk about the executive.

I think a lot of the confusion would dissipate if we could drop the false impression that the executive must represent real neural structures. There certainly isn’t any need for that connection in discussing the effects researchers connect with a ‘flawed executive function’.

A discussion in context would probably be useful to some of us. I had plenty of interesting conversations about behavior and the executive functions (there are more than one) back in the late Sixties, with some of the people that originally participated in coining the term.

We just need to stop pretending we’re talking about a part of our brains. Even if this would prove to be true, we don’t have any clear evidence for it now. (It would sure surprise the heck out of us, but anything’s possible.)


There's a whole school of thought in my field that intelligence = creativity…
In a lot of other fields, too. Philosophers particularly love arguing the point.

The definition of both terms is always a little dicey, but sociologists and anthropologists have long fallen back on this connection, particularly in field work. Creativity can be quantified in a restricted sense by looking at such things as use of tools, variety of form in social interactions, and like that.

And in science fiction it’s assumed. That doesn’t mean the assumption automatically turns science into fiction, of course…

EF's is not your total brain. EF's control your behaviour by using learning from the past and projecting behaviour into the future. Most animals don't have EF's, yet they function fine. If your EF's were totally disabled you would live in the moment, as say your dog does.
‘Living in the moment’ in that sense doesn’t depend on any ‘executive’, present or not. There’s quite a bit of work on this sort of thing out there; look for the models of consciousness that characterize it as a sort of play or movie.

There’s an interesting article in the April 2006 Scientific American (Why Are Some Animals So Smart? pp. 64 – 71) about the evolution of intelligence in Orangutans. It touches on the way the internal model of reality develops, and how it becomes stretched beyond the moment through the process of social interaction.

Saying that animals don’t have executive functions is not a universally accepted interpretation, even among aficionados of the construct. Many of the elements of an executive are demonstrated by other species in certain circumstances.

There’s been serious discussion of morality in animals over the past several years. Some experimental subjects have shown a sense of how short-term self-denial can have long-term benefits.

Mothers instinctively plan ahead for the needs of their offspring, but they can adapt to a changing situation in doing so. That clearly requires an ability to apply several of the executive functions we commonly discussed in the Sixties: control of immediate behavior, control of long term goals, control with regard to the interests of the group, etc.

* * * * *

There’s something that always cracks us up about all this.

Our original interest in ‘executive functions’ was brought about when the people we were consulting in our work noticed that they seemed to require a sort of logical ‘view from above’, similar to one of the hallmarks of the differences in communication we were trying to understand.

Of course, we eventually realized (thanks to mathematician David Hilbert) that the ‘view from above’ implies operating on a different (usually higher) logical metalevel than the phenomena being viewed.

In effect, executive functions involve jumping up a metalevel to look down at the problems or processes you want to control, like a general planning a battle by pushing little figures around a big map.

That doesn’t really mean that we have an ‘executive’ working away inside our heads that makes use of metalevels. It’s only a reflection of the use of metalevels by those who originally created the linguistic framework.

Truth is, no matter how hard we try, we can’t come up with a need for any discrete ‘executive’.

Every behavioral artifact we’ve looked at only requires the same general neural architecture that defines the structures in the cerebellum, the visual processing that barbyma studies, the generation of that internal movie that corresponds to conscious awareness, anything you can think of.

When we look at the behavior that arises (and the associated experiential gestalt), we see patterns that look like an executive at work. But there isn’t anything actually in there doing it. It’s a kind of logical artifact, generated by the process of our perception of the patterns.

... coherent ... Nice :-)
High 5'ing the big E, whilst waving to Tom and Kay :-)

Multitasking at its finest.


ADD, anyone???

SB.

LL,

For sure ... sorry for taking so long to get around to an answer ... :-)

... and anyone remember this ...?...

http://www.addforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=258625&postcount=3405
#1-#7 (7 posts)
... and she fell ...
... a hard fall ...
... from a brick ...
... to the back ...
... of the head ...
... resulting in massive ...
***... change in mind ...***

Captain Da Da
Comedy Genius
And fellow admirer of U.N.K.L.E.'s Shadowlands.

Simply the finest post that there can ever be ... and just three words!

SB.

I think that we might want to consider a moratorium on metaphors for the rest of this thread. The problem with metaphors is that they can be misleading and can cause serious misunderstandings. They also do absolutely nothing to further scientific understanding. If one wishes to explain a complicated scientific process, then by all means provide definitions and sources to help people figure it out, but I think that the metaphors are making things a little too difficult.



OK ... so the first gentle, and probably quite unenlightening point to be made is ... what is medication?
Then perhaps to ask what differentiates food from medication?
Perhaps placing middle-ground substances into the fray might help, food-stuffs including garlic, ginger, turmeric ... all 'proven' to contain active ingredients with 'medicinal' properties, on aspects of body ... in the case of the above three ... within CVS and immunological functionality.
The question then becomes, is the medication performing some task which the body is capable of performing ... or is it introducing totally novel biological activity into the body?
There's a difference ... because if the body can do whatever the introduced chemical can do, then it's possible to postulate that that chemical might either be broken in disorder, or altered in improvement.
Ok, lemme narrow this down for you, since I assume this is in response to my earlier question. Perhaps I was not specific enough, but I was referring specifically to what is referred to as "psychoactive medication," that is, medication which acts within the brain to cause a change in consciousness. So for instance, an antibiotic is not a psychoactive medication, but Adderall is. Tylenol or aspirin are not psychoactive medications, but morphine is. We can skip the "what do we really mean by medication" philosophizing, it really irritates me, as I didn't mean for the question to be that broad.


In this case, the 'medication' works, and works well, working, well, by accepted standard neurochemical methods on neurones of the dopaminergic system, a network which presents in brain, and which is harnessed by mind.
I might have worded it differently, but ok, at least we're sort of on the same page regarding its method of action. It works on certain neurons in the brain to alter dopamine levels. There are some specifics that are important, but this is a good basic description.

OK ... so just imagine us pushing a mouse off the saddle of her oversized bike, us hopping on ... and riding it away ...

So ... the question becomes, we understand why the mouse bought the bike ... a component of our usage too ... but what is it that the chemical might appear to be assisting us in, in man, which it doesn't assist mouse in (and this is associated with mind :-) ) ... and therein we'll see the effects of medication to have the effects which we know to be associated with the stims.
Could you perhaps word this differently? We may both be speaking English here, but I don't think we're speaking the same language, and I really don't see how this relates to the issue at hand. For starters, and I'm not trying to be rude, but it is very difficult to understand what you are saying when you use such unorthodox grammar and syntax, and it's even more difficult when you throw a metaphor into the middle of it without actually explaining what the metaphor is supposed to represent. Again, I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just asking if you could write this in a more comprehensible manner if you want to get your point across.


To illustrate this argument using an argument which I do not agree with ... I believe the currently dominant model within ADHD is EF/reward circuitry.
I do believe that EF appears to wield what appears to be reward circuitry.
I don't believe that EF is any more than a metaphor, though.
I don't believe that reward circuitry is anything but a metaphor though.
Ok, part of the problem is that you're creating what's called a "straw man." This is when you oversimplify someone else's argument so that it is easier to knock it down. I don't think that you're doing it on purpose, but I do think that you may be misunderstanding the current thinking on ADHD.

For starters, dopamine is more than just a "reward system." It certainly functions this way in certain areas of the brain, but it also serves as an excitatory neurotransmitter that is used to activate certain areas in the prefrontal cortex.

Secondly, most executive functions aren't actually reward-based at all. They are inhibitory and regulatory functions, which actually work in the exact opposite manner, inhibiting certain activity at the ehavioral level, and inhibiting certain areas of the brain at the neurological level. This inhibitory effect doesn't necessarily mean no activity, it sometimes simply works as a timing mechanism, telling certain areas to switch on and off in a certain order, rather than just firing randomly. The increase in these inhibitory impluses that occurs when medication activates the prefrontal cortex is thought to be responsible for the sedating effect that medication has upon ADHD patients.

EF isn't really a metaphor. The act of naming them "executive" may be, but you're getting so caught up in semantics that you're ignoring that the functions themselves are not metaphorical. They may have a simple one-word name used to descrie them which is metaphorical, because descriptors are by definition metaphorical, but the actual functions are not a metaphor. Do you see that your error here is that you are looking the catch-all name for a group of functions and ignoring what these functions do? You need to take a step back and realize that there's more to these functions than the name.

I don't believe that reward circuitry is anything but a metaphor though.
Ok, it's nice that you believe that, and I suppose that "reward" is technically a metaphor in the sense that there's not someone handing out trophies there, but there is a system in the brain which acts as a positive reinforcement system, which helps strengthen pathways that lead to successful outcomes. We call it a "reward system" because this is useful shorthand. I assure you that the researchers involved to not believe that there are literally trophies being handed out by the basal ganglia.

I think that you may be making some fundamental errors in your opinions because you are looking at metaphors that neurologists use to give complicated topics a quick shorthand explanation, and mistakenly assuming that this means that these topics are literally modelled that way. I also think that you aren't seeing how other people can find it insulting when you mistakenly criticize them for things that they aren't actually saying.

Just jumping further down ... maintaining the notion of EF->reward (dopaminergic), whilst filling in the gaps with a more satisfying mechanistic basis to the ideas of EF and reward.

Again, bad syntax. If I understand what you are saying correctly, then no, this is still incorrect, and I think that you are still misunderstanding the research. nobody says that EF->dopamine...it's the other way around, that increased striatal dopamine levels lead to prefrontal activation, which then creates a series of inhibitory signals that act to regulate impulses other areas of the brain. These functions of inhibitory impulse control are referred to as "executive functions." The term "executive functions" is not literal, ok, noody, not a single researcher, considers it to be a literal term. The term is figurative. The actual functions are not figurative. The actual functions are real. I think that this may be where you had a misunderstanding.

I'm with Hyperion on the "Reward system". The research done on this is pretty good stuff. It also dove tails nicely with the idea of a collection of functional modules specialized to the environment they evolved in. An idea that produces lovely testable hypothesis and has borne a good deal of fruit in evolutionary psychology circles.

Human beings for example and quite good at handling the extroadinarily complex information processing necessary to handle social situations. Yet we are lousy natural statisticians and logicians. In one experiment a two demographically identical groups were both asked the same logic question. In the first group the question was abstract. In the second group the same problem was presented couched as a social dilema. 70% of the respondents in the first group answered the question wrong, while in the second group the results were nearly exactly opposite. Exactly what one would expect to see if the brain was not a "general purpose computer" but in fact optimized with various functional modules to handle things like social situations. A cheater detector for instance is one such hypothetical module.

Reward and seeking centers serve a genuine biological purpose. Just as emotional responses they may well trigger in the course of their function do. People often view emotions as "interfering" with rational thought. In point of fact we need emotions to weight decisions. An individual without "emotional intelligence" in this regard would be clinically psychotic.

Oddly some new studies point out that our unconscious (IE the cognitive functions we aren't aware of on the surface) actually make consistently better decisions about many things given the chance than we do when we "Consciously decide". The article It was either in Discover or Scientific American probably the latter, made me think of these events. Only in the article the weren't necessarily ever aware of things their unconscious mind apparently understood.

From T&K:
Is this the guy?
http://www.addforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=287369&postcount=266

You should check out Why Are Some Animals So Smart? by Carel Van Schaik. (Scientific American, April 2006 pp. 64 - 71)

Pinning down the ability of animals to apply abstraction only blurs our view of the definitive difference between H. Sapiens and the rest of the species we know about.

That‘s OK by us, ‘cause you literally can’t get there from here. Understanding what makes humans unique requires a different approach; all these studies will ever do is prove how we’re similar.

Van Schaik almost get to it; he misses by a whisker recognizing that the Orangutans in his study have an internal model of reality, but they don’t inhabit it. He gets the role of culture right, and the extent to which innovation is communicated by close social contact.

But he also proves convincingly that Orangutans still rely on random happenstance to innovate; the difference between us and them is we can learn by copying innovative new behaviors of others in the group that haven’t yet occurred in any physical reality.

That, of course, is possible because we actually inhabit our common internal model of reality, and those other members of the group whose behavior we observe and copy are just another element of that internal model.

We consider the descent into that internal reality the hallmark of the original speciation event, the primary emergent property that distinguished the first modern humans. Of course a lot more emerged as things got revved up a bit. But most of what we might point to over the last five thousand or so years is related to the next event, the one we’re busily emerging from as we speak. (Most cultural myth systems and religions refer to the original event in some interesting way; the Christian Bible covers it pretty well in Genesis.)

Van Schaik missed realizing he had demonstrated the difference between our intellect and that of the Orangutans. And he didn’t quite get the idea of the common model, but a lot of it is right there, too. Everybody’s getting into the act…


Oddly some new studies point out that our unconscious (IE the cognitive functions we aren't aware of on the surface) actually make consistently better decisions about many things given the chance than we do when we "Consciously decide". The article It was either in Discover or Scientific American probably the latter, made me think of these events. Only in the article the weren't necessarily ever aware of things their unconscious mind apparently understood.

Is this the guy?
Post #96 from that thread ...

How about ... a meta-thinker is by definition *incapable* of meta-thinking whilst in a state of conscious awareness of meta-thinking,
---so picture a real convoluted (but shortest path between A and B),
---and imagine traversing it whilst taking heed of the 'meaningless' but purely logical relational structure which contains the route between each letter and 'the rest' ... too much, too freaky ... the goal is the answer to the problem (not the route taken) i.e. Input A -> Output B
---the linear and nonlinear ADD thinking patterns fit in under this idea, ie different structures, different methods of getting from A to B, with linear having the sole advantage of not resulting in the "look[ing] scattered or ditzy" effect :-) ... walking backwards on a nonlinear thread can be tricky :-)
---the logical structures, as set out above, are formed without conscious input (naturally) ... ie we can't think an exchange of nodes, or think ourselves to an efficient storage structure ... our minds have to do this without conscious intervention, guidance, assistance ...

So, a point to be repeated ... we often use 'think' to indicate conscious thought. Perhaps it is better to consider thought as the combination of interplay (subconscious<--->>>>>>>>>>conscious) ... and perhaps to try not to denigrate subconscious thought. To be returned to below ...

Other than that, I guess just the other point that I raised on the second interpretation of your avatar (in this thread) and the reference to a post by Stanzen ... however, sadly now, in a threadnomore ...
... which is to suggest that we mix in all of the above with the newly acquired facility to host *>1 thread of conscious awareness*.

"ditzyditzyditzy" if we pull out prematurely from that gig ... :-)

So ADDers are for sure-fire top-gun auto-pilot aces ... very very true, but not an observation that is commonly made ... wish it were though ... if only :-) we could tie the ADDer mind in auto-pilot in with that other thing that we are forever being accused of ...

day-dreaming ... autopilot ... day-dreaming ... autopilot

You say Kokomo, I say Arapaho ... is it not possible that the mechanism underlying day-dreaming and auto-pilot is the same?

To make this idea hang together a little more comfortably rather like that grey linen jacket you are just so going to have, we need to add in the idea of conscious thought being subservient to sub-conscious thought, so a picture ...

... a society in which people cannot attend the big game
... a commentator who provides a 30 second intro and a 30 second post-match summary, around several hours of gameplay
... a society which begins to miss the point of what the game represents and instead becomes attracted to hearing only the result
... a society losing touch with the fact that the rain-sodden bedraggled reporter is reporting on, and providing a far far far less vibrant view of the game than might be achieved through watching the game, but of course, not through any fault on the commentator's behalf ... 1 minute is all that he's allowed
... and finally a society for which the game is nothing beyond the description offered in that 1 minute, the commentator is believed to be describing the actual game; the commentator becomes the big jalapeno.

So ... conscious thought as the commentator.

This basic idea is aimed particularly at the idea of me my self I and of how its gift to us is an army of terms from the ideous to the egsasperating ... but perhaps Joan summed it up best by Me, Myself, I ... developing into 'Drop the pilot' (the order of these song releases is all important here).

Drop the pilot
(aka running on autopilot)
(aka giving up on the notion of control)
(aka the folly of anthropomorphizing)

Drop the pilot
.....Try my balloon
Drop the monkey
.....Smell my perfume

Drop the mahout
.....dropping the mahout is going to prove to be necessary here
Drop the mahout
.....but why these ideas are so difficult to convey is beyond me, since (take it to the bridge Joan) ...
...We'll be taken so high,
That we're never ever gonna' wanna' come down.

Clever girl (J) :-)

Arapaho, Joe, Mahout ... Kokomo???
Transparency of mind is what we need :-)
Really all we need,
A-l-l-t-h-a-t-w-e-n-e-e-d

SB.

SB.

---the logical structures, as set out above, are formed without conscious input (naturally) ... ie we can't think an exchange of nodes, or think ourselves to an efficient storage structure ... our minds have to do this without conscious intervention, guidance, assistance ...
That is spot on, although it’s valid to think of consciousness as actually being that process, at least for some of what‘s stored. It’s like the springs pushing back at your butt in a chair, doing all the work of holding you up: all we perceive is the weight of our butts…


So ... conscious thought as the commentator…
…and the one minute s/he’s on the air expanding to become all of reality.


Arapaho, Joe, Mahout ... Kokomo???
Transparency of mind is what we need :-)
Really all we need,
A-l-l-t-h-a-t-w-e-n-e-e-d

SB.

SB.
Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I want to take ya
To Bermuda, Bahama, come on, pretty mama
Key Largo, Montego, baby, why don't we go
(Ooh I want to take you) Down to Kokomo…

We'll get there fast and then we'll take it slow
That's where we want to go
Way down in Kokomo…

(Courtesy of Brian Wilson: yet another musical genius named Bryan, albeit spelt a little oddly in our opinion…)

Throwing muses ... let's give this whole post an IMotfO

otf
on the fly

hyperactive Tammy nailed this guy.
Tammy totally nailed it.
Importantly, hyperactivity generally diminishes with age, and then there's the motor cortex and cerebellum, and the there's the cognitive effects of movement, and then there's the Tammy wiggle and then there's the theory of saccadic motion.
If I were taken to wildly freakish theories of everything, a discipline, which I believe should be called metaSystemsmetaAnalysis ... then I'd say it was something to do with a kinda' association between the actual motion of man, and wheels of the engine of cognition sharing an evolutionary ancestor ... whereby hyperactivity ... motion, one of the big big deals in evolution, originally ... the ability to run away from blobbular life forms eager to put you on their table ... and the legacy ... though perhaps also the association ... of hyperactivity, being to increase the rate of the EXACT same processes which Speedo mentions i.e. collation of data into coherence, kinda' like a wave :-)
At this precise moment in time feel as though the motion:cognition connection is a legacy of evolution, however moreso, that kinda like some vestigial relationship ... some element of functionality is gained through the association.

OK ... so again ... because I need to straighten this out in my head.

That ...
evolution of movement mechanisms assisted in the switch from 'motor' to a motor for cognition, where the motor for cognition (i.e. the stuff about learning upon which I Billy bore on about constantly) ... data ... the sense stream ... data ... leading to a data driven architecture for the brain.
Data is only recruited on delta ... the very idea behind saccadic motion, and by that I mean that our sense stream just wouldn't work, if it were barraged by the exact same signal.
Explanation ... touch.
If a needle is pressed against the skin ... the initial sensation is lost, if the needle is kept perfectly still.
The term for this phenomenon is the refractory period associated with hyperpolarization.
Think your leg falling asleep.
Now ... cognition and motor ... we often don't mention the motor cortex do we, always PFC.
Motor cortex lies caudal, alongside cerebellar cortex, close to brain stem, ancient structures ... the vermis of cerebellum translates to ... worm (-shaped).

Neural basis of movement ancient. Seen in pre-Cambrian worms.
Within the regularity of the cerebellum we see the inflexible pre pre-Cambrian explosion nervous system of the worm.

A superficial look at C.elegans will provide us with an organism with a nervous system consisting of neurones --- as regular as any other cellular system in that organism ... always the same number of cells, at the same time in the same place ...during development...

The regularity of the cerebellum is a reflection of the regularity of that primitive nervous system.
The cerebellum is an ancient structure, sitting as it does ... so close to the brain stem.

So ... neural basis of movement hijacked to generate 'complex' instinctive behaviours of brain e.g. when one teaches one dog to sit and wait before her best friend screams 'Yeeehaaaa!!!' ( ahem!!! :-) )...
Neuronal behaviour now observably logical as the central control of peripheral motion 'clones' itself ... to generate a separate subsystem ... so now the nervous system is performing logical processing tasks.
Instinctive in nature, not abstract, learnt, but closer to instinct than to the complex processes by which we perform 'sausage conjectures'.
:-)

->central nervous control of motion (brain)
->CNS control of instinctive behaviour (brain)
->CNS control (mind)

order of evolutionary appearance.

Drive clearly obvious?

But energetically ... OK cool ... neuronal firing is the analogue of the ETC (electron transport chain) of the mitochondria.
Energetic motivation is realized from the electron (of the ETC) and the proton (the pumps from H+ upwards which are the mechanism of relay).

The electrical circuits are the drive for all of this aren't they.
No way ... I'd never have guessed that.
All of this is secondary to energetics.
Geeze ... I'm gonna' need someone to correct this idea ... it's all backwards from an intuitive perspective.
But it's right isn't it.
Geeze ... we've developed, this whole neural business isn't about survival per se, that all followed ... it was about laying down as much circuitry as possible in a system ... in effect to generate a blimmin' turbocharged battery.
Geeze ... no way!!!
Fit as much thought as possible into a life form, the more the neuronal firing ... the more 'satisfied' the drive ~energetics~.

Favourable and entropy perhaps better terms.

OK ... I'm a little too disturbed to complete these ideas, next post maybe ... please feel free to break what I've written, it's made me feel just a little queasy.

SB.

!!!

OK ... now I get it ... we're driven to learn ... coz that means using shed loads of thought ... thinking or the actual processes of neural communication ... is the drive. It itself is an expression of instinct.
We're driven to do the 'think' thing ... because it's a translation of the only force that there is.
Geeze ... we're blimmin' driven by the same as everything.

Blimmin' ... who'd have guessed that?

It's backwards.

geeze ... The Jefferson quote ... Thomas ... No way!!!
Morality and freedom to develop our minds ain't what it seems.

It's all about squeezing as much as possible ... nodes, into the brain ... it's about as many threads of neural processes as possible ... it's all about efficiency of storage of information ... it's No way!!!

This is big.

That means that morality and thought and everything that we hold as important to our species ... is yes yes yes a drive.
But now we know why.

Come on ... no way!

SB.

We have it all backwards.
EMF and PMF.
DNA at best a token Oscar after years of supporting the real players.
Any takers ... :-) ...???...

In for a penny ...

SB.

In for a penny?

How about?

Love Actually?

Love is ... ?

2 synergistic micro-organisms trying to find their way in a heavy World.

-*-

So ... a night club ... somewhere out there ... looking up at the stars.
So, pre-Homo Simpson 'muscle for a brain' low-life overweight but muscular neuronal progenitor rolls up to Miss Marg 'mitochondria' Simpdaughter, petite, energetic and Homo knew, that she'd be his own special conjugate one, the one he'd make ADD kids with, one day at least. Right from the start Homo settled into his role, settled into his armchair, chilled in his destiny, as a lazy, food guzzling globbular blobbular, whilst his rod-like wife whisked around him, with a duster, and then a hoover, and then the Municipal Waste Disposal Unit ... which is awfully funny, because ...yeah... the energy and the replication ... Do you remember when Homo was caught in the toilet, holding his nose and blowing real hard ... 'yeah ... he'd lost it ... ' ... he'd lost the ability to spontaneously divide.
Marg ... 'yes, Homo'
'Marg, I've lost the ability to spontaneously divide'
...don't worry Homo ... put your feet up, and mitochondrial Marg dropped some old pizza onto the big bazooka belly.
But Marg ... my belly don't do what your belly do.
No Homo, doll, but your belly's important too.
You just sit there, and watch t.v.
I feel safe, with you, out there, just knowing that you're there is alls I need, Homo.
Awww Marg.
Awww Homo.
Come here Marg.
Homo!!! ((( what if the kids see :-) )))
:-)

-*-

The neurone is a terminally differentiated cell which does not divide.
The electron transport chain occurs within the mitochondria, and energy (or ATP) is transduced by the proton motive force ... of proton to rejoin electron.
ATP is the ATP, of the bases A,G,T,C.
Energy transduction predates gene, genetic code, genomes.
A,G,T,C arose from 'instinct' to sustain the basic energetic principle described above.
Instinct reduces to this process.
Geeze and I can even smell the 'Nobel' guy from town for all of this stuff from here ... 'John Walker' for his work describing ATP synthase ... the freaked out mitochondrial process for transducing PMF into ATP.
So the mitochondria, the 'driver of life' with the PMF at the wheel synergised with organisms ... and became an intracellular organelle.
In return for energy, and assisting its conjugate partner in recovering the property of disseminating its DNA, the other (host) organism rendered the mitochondria safe by ensuring that UV damage was limited (decreased cell division ensures that UV mutagens cannot disrupt its cell cycle into a hypermitotic frenzy).
Mitosis -> Meiosis.
However noting that mitochondrial DNA is only transmitted through the maternal line, and that later, the X chromosome of male is female derived, and that female holds 2 copies, and man (only 1).
Here's a doozy ... how many mitochondria (mitochondrial genomes) in a cell.
One might say man from Venusian viruses (viridae) and woman from Martian mycobacteria ... how so nearly author dude of pop-psych!!!
:-)
Loads!
What determines the number ... need for energy.
What determines energy requirement?
An energetic basis to all of this ... all of it ...
The more the energetic process (basic function of nature) <<<forget life here>>> -> the more the energy that is produced, is required, is driven by the needs of the host organism.
Synergy.
Entropy ... G/H/S ... uncovered.
Unplugged.
The host organism synergises, supplies input, cleans up output (superoxide dismutases and friends) ... nearly one of my PhD titles (if I hadn't forgotten to accept the place) :-) ... ADD, anyone?
Geeze ... why do I keep doing that?
Cells which are not dividing are neither susceptible to viral attack.
The cell synergizing with the mitochondria, then, one would expect, would demand that the mitochondrial energy factory be in on, on, on mode ... would demand energy, would supply input and ouput, would protect the delicate DNA of the mitochondria ... would in return, be granted immortality, and energy to travel together into the future.
Muscle places great demands on mitochondria.
As does the neurone, one would expect, if working at extremely rapid rates of firing.
ATP ion channels ... you hear me ... you hear me ... I hear me???
Nope --- explain it again.
The basic ion channel responsible for the transmission of energy out of the cell ... uses the very thing ATP ... produced by the mitochondria.
Dude ... think push me pull you.
Think llama ... think banana ... think 'vegetarian sausage conjecta'.
An energetic principle enshrined as the magic filter of genetic evolution, and genetic evolution as secondary to energetic concerns.
An alternative paradigm for life, that's so freakin' obvious that only the freakin' ADDer could freakin' get it.
Hiss!!!
The X chromosome is the known home for a large number of genes which're associated with 'brain' disease (not mind).
Structural:logical junction must occur ... but
dysjunction in
function, a
compunction of
destruction of the precedent.
The brain is allowed to evolve in male ... with the genes involved in brain (structural concerns) ... mutating more freely in male ... due to hemizygosity.
Any good ... ie no loopifreakazoidiness and woman picks the guy for conjugation (it's a family show ... and so I'll stop right there) :-)
Hemizygosity defines the X xhromosome :-) zxcvbnm ... in man as being more sensitive to changes induced by UV ... since dominant mutation/polymorphism/changed may lead to altered function ... monoallelism ensuring rapid evolution, since the other allele (which occurs absolutely everywhere else in the male (and female) genome) is dropped ... recessive characters occur much less quickly than dominant ... due to 2 mutations being required ... or selection for the first and examination of future ... f1/2/3/4/5 ... generations.
Why should a non-functional potentially real useful recessive character be selected ... if there's no sign of dominant behaviour.
It shouldn't.
But energetic concerns.
The drive ... is to improve the synergy between male and female, host and mitochondria.
The deal is ... all of that previous post ... it's all about the ... about the ... the transduction of life from purely energetic concerns.

Hats off nature dude, that's all just so freakin' unintuitive ... from the cheap seats ... from this ape in the cheap seats ... from this half of a synergistic relationship, which has been defined by events from the beginning ... events ...

2 synergistic micro-organisms trying to find their way in a heavy World.

Love is ... ?

Love Actually?

How about?

In for a penny?

Yeah, I know ... I don't know ... I know.

SB.

Oh ... and by the way (the above was sponsored by IMotfO)

evolution of movement mechanisms assisted in the switch from 'motor' to a motor for cognition, where the motor for cognition (i.e. the stuff about learning upon which I Billy bore on about constantly) ... data ... the sense stream ... data ... leading to a data driven architecture for the brain.

I just know it hurt …..I do not wish to cause problems here

I am still not sure the wording “feel the need to move” doesn’t convey enough emphasis of what is going on inside of wiggly wiggly wiggly meadd! I know I am thick skulled! Believe it or not I am trying to help ….. some things I do understand how it feels to be me is one of them!

I am not looking for validation, ,look at the hyper=pure impulsive ADDErs we make up the smallest percentage of our own group especially in places like this because so many are “broken” but not because they were born that way!

Now to emphasis the point I can’t seem to let go through metaphors. I aint as good as SB but will try!

To those who think I feel the need are you saying you understand my wiggles like this…. Imagine the below in the mind because it aint safe to really try this…

You light up the ole gas stove the flames touch just above the metal black thing……now keeping your hand parallel with the stove top (do not come from above you’ll screw it up) slide it steadily but not fast over the flame aprox 3 inches above the tip of the fire………………………………………………………………..

NOW when you jerked your hand back did ya move it because you felt like you had to or because it hurt??? There is a difference THUS MY point!

There is a difference and I am trying to offer a key to those like me. A majority don’t end up on message boards ( as Scuro has pointed out) but sure seem to populate jails! See I do understand what I am told, I think. Never know, but do please hear me out. The nagry impulsive people spend a life time of understanding only the frustration being misunderstood, the answer to why some hyper impulsive types “stand out like a dirty shirt”.

To make the movement stop hurts like the flames will your hand and for much the same reasons toooooooo


I know I should sit down and shut up and be a good little moderator but then sitting down and shutting up has never been my strong suite. The moderator will depends on the day as long as shutting up without physical movement doesn’t enter the picture then I have a chance!


Thank you:
To those who listened and understood-or at least tried words aren't my specialty (good thing huh) I am not trying to be mean but I simply want to make sure the distinction between “want to” “felt the need” to wiggle and “have to” wiggle because if we don’t parts of our mind “die” and we “feel” it inside…..now you know why the spankings, punishments, threats, never worked to stop wiggle wiggle wiggle move about behavior = connect the dots. It don’t get any rrrealer than this.

Ya can’t see the feeling perhaps the chemical movement physical properties proposed by “main steam of that I do not dispute…question yes but aint quiet figured how else to get answers…not yet any way! Interpretation well it would be hard to observe the inside from the out I am asking ever so politely why is it seen as “the feeling of needing to wiggle” explain the difference between that and the feeling of pain…..if I did not move.




My mind won’t shut up too many thoughts pictures brain impulses……dot connecting going every which way!

See if those glucose shortages seen in ADHDers brain remain with the ADHDer wiggling all about that should do the trick of increase that which is deemed low…..…..wiggle=alert / like SB said! Motor cortex goes all over the brain including but not limited to frontal lobe = home of EF and if you can “see ” what I saying your going the right way…..exercise butt = exercise brain…..For some physical movement means KEEP brain alive and developing right!!

Wiggle part of EF this you can bank upon because that which doesn’t wiggle wiggle wiggle grows roots! Wiggle is attention via movement= in time and space is logical spatial learning / think stimulant meds through body *** natural movement wiggle sore butt, risk taking and am I hallucinating when I see the big picture emerging (word so contagious I can even spell it) To those who teach…… sorry if we can’t help but disrupt class rooms, annoy teachers we don’t want to but we can sit still or focus but not both!!! I know that I know that I know what I am talking about remember I live there and have for over 40 years!

My mind keeping going and going kind of like my buttttttttt


Aren't yall glad you got the abridged version????

Great Tam ...
observations ... same experiential perspective going too fast on a bicycle and a motorbike.
Single theory which unites ... might be ... ?
move -> move cortex
move cortex -> cloned to -> thinking cortex
but ...
move -> increases sensory input ie rapidly changing scenery ...

what if ...

move -> increases sensory input ie rapidly changing scenery ...
move -> move cortex + thinky cortex
move -> wiggly wiggly worm -> the clue -> the big clue ... which'll be taught in AdvancedMolecularEvolution823 ... soon :-) ... scriw CurrentThoughtonEvolution101

naughty! ... Ize dyslexic 2!

:-) (please edit if you like) :-) ... no worries! :-)

SB.

I just know it hurt Think difference between suspending yourself below a wire with one hand (the circus has come to town, and you've snuck in before a show) ... suspended above a safety net ... and ---then--- just letting go ... thinking about the soon-to-follow serial bounce-a-thon, Tammy prescribing a wave in 2 dimensions ... hee hee ... hee!

... from an energetic perspective ... you were holding onto a wire.
One hand.
No gloves.
Painful.
You betcha'

ouch!!!

The moving ... the action as described by 'energetic principles' ... the drive ... the instinct ... the not following one's instinct (the pain) ... to move ... the goal ... the desire ... the satisfaction of a readily understandable model which aligns, subsumes, consumes and trumps current understanding (now)

:-) sausages! (Do you think that'll stop the onslaught of 'silly SB' calling?)
I kinda like being called 'silly' ...though... especially from HF (think edits :-)) ... !
Such a young man, with such a serious head on him.
All meant as high compliments, and I need you to explain your data driven architecture post from 'Polymorphic.'
:-)

... a model of instinct as entropy ...deltaS(tabile ... Tom ... was your father into physical chem? (more so than inorganic or organic chemskys)).

Who'd have GHESSED?
g Gibbs (free ... run!!!)
H Enthalpy
E Energy
S Entropy
S Stabile
E Entropy --- Take II (so good they named it ...)
D delta

So ... freakin' ... obvious.

Little shop of Horrors.
Freakin' flower screaming 'Feed me' ... with sensory input.
Sensory input, or the neurone neuronating ... is plant food.

SB.

from an energetic perspective ... you were holding onto a wire.
One hand.
No gloves.
Painful.
You betcha'

ouch!!!

I am so glad some one has finally heard….. soooo sorry it has been a long loud yelling haul in here….with much wtf is wrong with your brain=aint nothing wrong with my ears…….. no one understands= no one cared tooooo! My mom did try she at least accepted me for me / that is how come I am not as “broken” not all are as lucky! So glad Gary is asleep he would never get it……..I have few out ward emotional moments usually I do expressions only when I am alone…… regular things are hard enough to try to explain………. I am no longer here in this mind by my self………….sooooooo true…………. Btw posting at the same time………….way cool …………….okay polymorphic thread wow I hadn’t thought about that in a while….excellent long term…………memory!!! The stories = the remembrance seeing these complicated chemicals as a story on the inside…….. wow way cool. I think I see better than I can read words then that you knew already!

( :connect:connect:connect:-)(beyond words-thank you)

I just know it hurt …..I do not wish to cause problems here

I am still not sure the wording “feel the need to move” doesn’t convey enough emphasis of what is going on inside of wiggly wiggly wiggly meadd! I know I am thick skulled! Believe it or not I am trying to help ….. some things I do understand how it feels to be me is one of them!

I am not looking for validation, ,look at the hyper=pure impulsive ADDErs we make up the smallest percentage of our own group especially in places like this because so many are “broken” but not because they were born that way!

Now to emphasis the point I can’t seem to let go through metaphors. I aint as good as SB but will try!

To those who think I feel the need are you saying you understand my wiggles like this…. Imagine the below in the mind because it aint safe to really try this…

You light up the ole gas stove the flames touch just above the metal black thing……now keeping your hand parallel with the stove top (do not come from above you’ll screw it up) slide it steadily but not fast over the flame aprox 3 inches above the tip of the fire………………………………………………………………..

NOW when you jerked your hand back did ya move it because you felt like you had to or because it hurt??? There is a difference THUS MY point!

There is a difference and I am trying to offer a key to those like me. A majority don’t end up on message boards ( as Scuro has pointed out) but sure seem to populate jails! See I do understand what I am told, I think. Never know, but do please hear me out. The nagry impulsive people spend a life time of understanding only the frustration being misunderstood, the answer to why some hyper impulsive types “stand out like a dirty shirt”.

To make the movement stop hurts like the flames will your hand and for much the same reasons toooooooo



Thank you:
To those who listened and understood-or at least tried words aren't my specialty (good thing huh) I am not trying to be mean but I simply want to make sure the distinction between “want to” “felt the need” to wiggle and “have to” wiggle because if we don’t parts of our mind “die” and we “feel” it inside…..now you know why the spankings, punishments, threats, never worked to stop wiggle wiggle wiggle move about behavior = connect the dots. It don’t get any rrrealer than this. Ya can’t see the feeling perhaps the chemical movement physical properties proposed by “main steam of that I do not dispute…question yes but aint quiet figured how else to get answers…not yet any way! Interpretation well it would be hard to observe the inside from the out I am asking ever so politely why is it seen as “the feeling of needing to wiggle” explain the difference between that and the feeling of pain…..if I did not move.



My mind won’t shut up too many thoughts pictures brain impulses……dot connecting going every which way!

See if those glucose shortages seen in ADHDers brain remain with the ADHDer wiggling all about that should do the trick of increase that which is deemed low…..…..wiggle=alert / like SB said! Motor cortex goes all over the brain including but not limited to frontal lobe = home of EF and if you can “see ” what I saying your going the right way…..exercise butt = exercise brain…..For some physical movement means KEEP brain alive and developing right!!

Wiggle part of EF this you can bank upon because that which doesn’t wiggle wiggle wiggle grows roots! Wiggle is attention via movement= in time and space is logical spatial learning / think stimulant meds through body *** natural movement wiggle sore butt, risk taking and am I hallucinating when I see the big picture emerging (word so contagious I can even spell it) To those who teach…… sorry if we can’t help but disrupt class rooms, annoy teachers we don’t want to but we can sit still or focus but not both!!! I know that I know that I know what I am talking about remember I live there and have for over 40 years!

My mind keeping going and going kind of like my buttttttttt


Aren't yall glad you got the abridged version????

For the same reason we don't see that the earth is round is the perfect answer. :-)

Our perceptions of the world are limited in several ways. For starters perspective. Being so small and ground bound for most of our history it would be very easy to assume the earth is a flat expanse. You need a change of perspective, or a demonstration that could only be done if it wasn't flat (like sailing around the world) to see different.

The problems are much deeper than that though. Every individuals perception of reality is literally a figment. A useful figment to be sure, but a figment nonetheless, and one only accurate enough for you to function in your environment and successfully negotiate it. We have literally no direct experience of the world. Our visual experience is based on interpretation of light interference patterns based on patterns registering on the retina. Even touch is indirect. It's the ultimate virtual realitiy experience. Humans, arguably, have the finest "Mental model" of actual reality in existence largely due to the necessity of a sophisticated world model to exist with other humans. As good as it is though it is still deeply flawed. Dennet discusses these flaws in depth and fascinating detail in "Consciousness explained". Fortunately he leaves off the philosophical terminology for these aspects of his discussion because his philosophy backround often makes him very difficult for me to read.

The point being that the human brain only needs a good enough model to get the job done. Add to this that what "Gets the job done" in our ancestral hunter gatherer environment is very different than what is required in many ways in the "Modern" context. Probability theory points up some of these flaws nicely. People suck at it. We fear flying inspite of it being astoundingly safer than car travel. This has to do with short cuts our brains take in looking at things. Optical illusions are another fine example. If our visual systems didn't take shortcuts optical illusions would be far fewer if there were any at all. A good example is how the brain handles the enormous amount of data involved. It concentrates on "relevant data". IE if an image is static except for the squirell running across the lawn, then your brain doesn't reprocess the rest of the image constantly, only the moving object. This, incidentally, is one aspect of how we compress video for electronic applications.

One of the wonderful things science has done for humanity is to provide means of getting around many of these flaws in our mental models. Like formalized probability theory and logic among other things.

The point being that the human brain only needs a good enough model to get the job done.
Hey E,
Quick question ... do you have a link to info on 'Consciousness Explained' ... just a one will do ( if you have one --- no worries, if you don't :-) ) ... which specifically describes the structure of the text.

Also ... why does the brain have to get the job done?
Why can't it just chill ... with a beer ... until it keels over?
Squidge.

Sorry E-boy ... not being flippant ... just that the drive that you provide, is of the ...
requirement to complete the job ->driving-> the brain to do it.
But... why bother?
Because it'll die otherwise ... maybe?
But what if you put the brain in a room, with sufficient food for life.

The ultimate attraction for the single Homer Neanderman ... a door in the wall where he receives his food, and an armchair.

Would that be paradise for Homo sapiens?

PS ... Tried to explain the idea of Pinker's divergence from Chomsky :-) ... just did it in my own twisted abstruse way :-) ... sorry :-) !!!

:-)

SB.

Executive functions and how much do they really have to do with ADD........?

What is the record number of time a thread had been split??

How many executives did it take????

Thanks Tammy, that thread splitting did seem like a lot of work.
Hey any chance we can change the title?
How about...

"excutive functions - finally in the lime light".

The current title makes sound like a dance request. :)

excutive functions - finally in the lime light".

Done title changed. Request probably made just in time!

That Einstein thread came so fast and furious that I didn't even have a chance to even look at some posts. I was just going through some old posts when this struck me. SB and Dr. Russell Barkley look to be on the same page at first glance. ..or perhaps they were simply reading the same author, Van Schaik.

I'll post later on EF's but for you ADDF groupies I had to post this for you. :)



Pinning down the ability of animals to apply abstraction only blurs our view of the definitive difference between H. Sapiens and the rest of the species we know about.

That‘s OK by us, ‘cause you literally can’t get there from here. Understanding what makes humans unique requires a different approach; all these studies will ever do is prove how we’re similar.

Van Schaik almost get to it; he misses by a whisker recognizing that the Orangutans in his study have an internal model of reality, but they don’t inhabit it. He gets the role of culture right, and the extent to which innovation is communicated by close social contact.

But he also proves convincingly that Orangutans still rely on random happenstance to innovate; the difference between us and them is we can learn by copying innovative new behaviors of others in the group that haven’t yet occurred in any physical reality.

and now Barkley...

There can be no imitation unless there is a nonverbal working memory system, which is why very few species imitate and only humans do vicarious learning. Vicarious learning is not where I do what you do, it’s where I do the opposite. I watch your mistakes and it immediately changes my behavior. Imitation is mimicry, doing what you do. Crank it up a notch and do the opposite. I don’t need to make the same mistakes. I learn from yours. Humans are the only species that shows vicarious learning. There are a few other species that imitate and they are the ones I’ve already told you about, which is why we think they have a nonverbal system.


SB....

We consider the descent into that internal reality the hallmark of the original speciation event, the primary emergent property that distinguished the first modern humans. Of course a lot more emerged as things got revved up a bit. But most of what we might point to over the last five thousand or so years is related to the next event, the one we’re busily emerging from as we speak. (Most cultural myth systems and religions refer to the original event in some interesting way; the Christian Bible covers it pretty well in Genesis.)

and Barkley again...

The ability to problem-solve on the fly as we’re going towards the future whenever we encounter obstacles that get in our way, things that disrupt our plans. This is goal-directed, future-oriented innovation, and all cultural innovation came out of this. We can probably determine when in human evolution this module emerged, because it will be the beginning of rapid cultural change. When did it start? About 60,000 years ago.

Scuro agreeing with SB :eek: okay am I in “upside down world” today?

Why can’t I spell any better if the world is up-side down? Oh yea I got to wait for backwards day.

Should I prepare for an eclipse of some sort of intergalactic occurrence?

Scuro I think I just witness a “spectacular event” with your last post! Which is great because I doubt I will live the five thousand years or so to see the speciation event

Wow, feel like I just found the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland!

Well done! I like Barkley better already! :D

Meadd, if I made you smile, it was worth the effort of digging up those quotes. :D

Those are Barkley's quotes by the way and although some of you may think that I totally agree with everything that Barkley posts on ADHD, I do disagree with some of his ideas.

http://nanonline.org/nandistance/mtbi/ClinNeuro/executive.html (http://nanonline.org/nandistance/mtbi/ClinNeuro/executive.html)

This site details executive function disorder.

Those are Barkley's quotes by the way and although some of you may think that I totally agree with everything that Barkley posts on ADHD, I do disagree with some of his ideas.

I understand. Just as I do not agree with SB or Stabile on every thing either. The fact I can understand most of what he writes is mistaken for agreement some times. Many points he makes I don't necessarily disagree with either because there are a lot of his ideas I simply do not know-haven't thought of it that way before !

He has some very original approaches -vividly visual- Like Barkley (and other members here on ADDF) his ideas are at least worth considering. Understanding is a problems for some but odd as it may sound I actually understand what SB says easier than Barley’s writings (scary I know-lol)!

I am enjoying the getting along but are you all reallyto kick this up a notch?

I wrote this yesterday maybe the day before by now but I was so enchanted by Scuro's post I forgot to post it.....nope no ADD round here either!

Here I go.....................

For a while when I did not live with my mom I was given spats every Sunday after church for wiggling. Most would think I simply was “difficult” impulsive, unable to connect spats with wiggling…much of the same words I read here “felt the need” I was accused of being “daft” unable to understand, incorrigibles, difficult, I also remember how wrong they were. One time I actually did stay still all during church service….I could stop my body but it wasn’t easy …after the 90 minutes service …I hurt so bad my body felt like it was made of lead and head felt it was in a fog it hurt to think. I couldn’t eat I just went to bed because I felt so ill. Naturally my care givers thought I had sat still because I was sick…NOT TRUE! I was sick because I sat still!

Okay what would be correct choice in your mind now? As adults which would you choose? Spats for wiggling in church who’s pain lasted all of five minutes or feeling so bad it was all I could do to make it to my bed where I stayed the rest of the day? Yea I “knew” what I was doing, there was thought and planning. I saw it like this pain was going to be part of the “church equation” the only choice I had is how bad and how long did I want to hurt.

So yea I was “a spirited child” but not because I wanted to be I was left no choice! My behavior didn’t have zip to do with lack of “impulse control”, “lack of planning”, “internal speech”, or “cognitive functioning” or any of this other stuff! In my mind I made a logical rational decision that appeared impulsive. Scuro you have the why behind my “forceful” questioning of EF functions as presented by science.

The questioning behind the “translated meaning” of science not the existence thereof which I think SB covered in another thread some where around here. This is the agreement you saw.

That kind of zapped the mystery out on the renegade moderator. .sorry I am not very complex! I am rather dull at heart. Perhaps I misunderstand, gee like that has never happened(note sarcasm)=all my life!


Now brake it down to kids…classroom the gestalt??? …sense I was that wiggle six year old child I wondered:


Why is it more acceptable that grandpa can’t sit still through a 90 minute service. It is seen as normal that he at 98 should hurt if he sits to long. It is acceptable if he needs to get up and go out side in the middle of a long church service. Yet little meadd823 at the age of 6 is “punished” for the same needs as her 98 year old grandpa. If we allow for the elderly to wiggle why not more so for the children who are growing and developing brain and body? Multiple this time 24/7 X’s 15 years is it any wonder the impulsive ADDer tend to spiral are out of control!


Welcome to my world, every one gets here eventually! Now it is easy to see why the world does not make sense when one was born with impulsive hyperactive ADD! After a life time of this kind of confusion the drug and criminal world make so much more sense!

As an “adult six year old” typing this I fail to se where I lacked some sort of executive functioning or disabled reasoning! Some 35 years later this still make me wonder……..why more importantly how?

Since we are on the topic of executive functions, I thought I'd bring out Tom Brown's model of EF. He identifies six executive functions that are impaired in what he calls "ADD Syndrome" (from Attention Deficit Disorder, p. 22):



Activation: Organizing, prioritizing, and activating to work
Focus: Focusing, sustainging, and shifting attention to tasks
Effort: Regulating alertness, sustaining effort, and processing speed
Emotion: Managing frustration and modulating emotions
Memory: Utilizing working memory and accessing recall
Action: Monitoring and self-regulating action
These differ from Barkley's theory of ADHD being an inhibition disorder; under Brown's model, lack of inhibition forms just one aspect (6).

I personally find Brown's model more compelling, both for its explanatory power and the fact that I have problems with each of these areas. :)

These differ from Barkley's theory of ADHD being an inhibition disorder; under Brown's model, lack of inhibition forms just one aspect (6).

Brown has a different model? Apparently because your list Uminchu looks different than the one I had in my mind....now I have some thing new to learn.... :o ..... tomorrow after some much needed sleep!

AHHH A different model oh no now I am never going to get the EF thing..... :faint:

Oh well it is worth a look see! Thanks :)

Barkley on inhibition.



The ability to inhibit your behavior is not just one of many mental abilities. It is the foundation. It is the foundation to all things you consider uniquely human about human mental activity. This is the foundation, the ability to wait, the ability to stop responding and not respond to an event. All other species are stimulus responders to their environment. Humans are not. Humans build in a pause between the stimulus and the decision to respond. And in that gap come all of our uniquely human attributes. Inhibition is not just another mental ability; it is the foundation upon which the human executive system is built. Neuropsychologists refer to this as the executive system because it gives you self-control, self-regulation. If inhibition fails, the executive system is going to fall apart. So we start out with inhibition, the ability to wait and not respond to the world around us. During that period of waiting, we will see four executive functions emerge in the course of a child’s development. Each one of them giving you a form of self-control not given by the other, all of them contributing to self-regulation, so that by adulthood humans are using in concert four different executive functions to manage their behavior, and they use them together interactively like a symphony. But there are four of them and they start out with inhibition first. And they develop in a stage-wise sequence. Each one needs the one before it before it can develop properly, and inhibition is the foundation. Each of these executive functions, each of these forms of self-control, start out by a common process. They all start out being observable behavior to others, and then the child in development turns it on himself and starts to use that behavior on himself, but you can still observe it. And then as that child matures, it becomes less and less observable. It goes from being overt to covert, public to private, physical to mental.

All right, what does it do for us? It does these four things. Each executive function contributes to a change in what is controlling your behavior. As a normal child develops—as these executive functions start to appear—you will start to see a change, from external to internal, from other’s control to self-management, from control by the moment and only the now, to anticipating the future and having it manage your behavior, and from immediate gratification to deferred gratification. Why is that important? All education requires this. Now you know why AD/HD has its greatest impact on education. Because AD/HD is destroying this.

AD/HD delays the development of inhibition, which means that it delays the onset of the four executive functions, which means that it delays what those executive functions are doing for the individual, which leaves the person with AD/HD more under the control of external events and other people around them and the temporal now and immediate gratification, when people of their age are moving in this direction, to being controlled by mental representations about time and the future, which gives them a sense of control over themselves. They don’t need other people to manage them, thank you. They can do it themselves and they are constantly working to maximize the future over the moment. And the person with AD/HD is stuck right here, living in the temporal now, only concerned with the immediate consequences and much more under the influence of the environment and others when other people are moving to more mature levels of self-management.

There are three kinds of inhibition that humans develop. We’re just going to lump them all into one type of inhibition, right here. But the most important is step one, motor inhibition. Can you stop the urge to act, the dominant response, the response that would get you the immediate rewards?

As that develops, you’ll develop a second type of inhibition. Once a behavior is under way and you’re monitoring what you’re doing, can you stop it dead in its tracks if it’s proving ineffective? We refer to this in psychology as a sensitivity to error. As you are engaged in a sequence of behaviors, can you change that sequence if what you are doing is proving to be a mistake? How flexible are you in the course of human activity in changing the course of your behavior to be increasingly effective?

Finally, the third kind of inhibition develops. We call it interference control. When you are engaged in thinking, when you are using your executive functions, when you are using these private behaviors to yourself, you have to protect them from being disrupted from the environment. And if you can’t do that, it will destroy your thinking. It will disrupt your executive functioning. It will destroy your ability to manage yourself. This tells us that people with AD/HD are not distractible all the time under all conditions by everything, but that distractions will only hurt them when executive functioning is needed in that task. When thinking is needed. When planful, thoughtful behavior is crucial, distractions will devastate them. But as long as they’re doing things that don’t involve executive functioning, distractions will not hurt them any more than anybody else. This is why they can play Nintendo for hours but you put them at homework where executive functioning is crucial and distractions will destroy them. And remember, it’s a developmental delay, not an absence. They can do this. They cannot do it as well as they should for their age, for their level of development.

Inhibition shuts down your motor system to keep you from responding to the world around you. Why is that necessary? Because over millions of years of evolution, your nervous system evolved to respond to immediate events. Humans evolved [inhibition] to shut [this system] down. We have an inhibition system at the front part of our forehead that reaches back into that brain through the striatum and shuts that system off. So that behavior is not released into the environment. If you create a lesion in that system, it goes about doing what it has done for millions and millions of years. It is a renegade motor system responding to the now and events that enter the sensory fields. That is a classic description of a frontal lobe injured patient and it is a classic description of somebody with AD/HD whose system is not being regulated, and therefore they’re under the control of the moment. Inhibition shuts that down, creating a delay, a pause, waiting. During the waiting, four executive functions will develop. Each executive function is a form of behavior to others that gets turned on the self and made covert, private. By the time you reach your early thirties, which is when this system has maxed out in its development, all four are up and running and give you human adult self-management for the future, and they take over the motor system. So that as you grow up, what is increasingly deciding your behavior for you is not the environment, but those [executive functions.]

I face that paradox, too.

I'm actually still able to multitask, but it I don't do so automatically as I did before meds. I am much more detailed now & the quality of my work has skyrocketed, but the quantity.... :(Umnichu and I were just discussing this very thing in his thread about starting medication. There is definately a more linear step by step approach and a higher liklihood of getting started and then actually staying with the project (evidence of improved executive function performance), but the speed definately suffers. I find that my ability to last minute rush in and pull off something I've been putting off is definately hampered. Now I'm not sure if that is specifically the multitasking that is hampered or as my executive functions reign in my extremely strong emotional response there is just less anxiety producing driveness. My psychologist early on told me that my high anxiety level combined with hyperfocus is probably what enabled me to function well in school by pulling off last minute projects, papers, etc in spite of my ADHD. Meds haven't hampered the hyperfocus but the emotions are way leveled off on Concerta. So here is a paradox of executive functions doing their job in helping initiate and maintain behavior as well as regulating emotions producing both benefits and drawbacks. Wouldn't it be nice to have it all!:cool:

Scattered

Brown has a different model? Apparently because your list Uminchu looks different than the one I had in my mind....now I have some thing new to learn.... :o ..... tomorrow after some much needed sleep!

AHHH A different model oh no now I am never going to get the EF thing..... :faint:

Oh well it is worth a look see! Thanks :)I heard Brown speak about his model at the ADDA workshop and it makes a lot of sense to me in jiving with what I experience. As he puts it the ability to not only stop behavior, but the ability to initiate and shift behavior is important (he uses the analogy of driving a car -- you need the gas, shifter, steering, and brakes. Not just the brakes.

I agree with Umnichu and also think he does a better job than Barkley of explaining the role executive functions play especially in the area of emotions (which is ignored in the DSM IV but is the most problematic area for me). His depiction of EF as a conductor of an orchestra being an overreaching arch that had under it's umbrella functions that can go wrong in a number of different psychological conditions (IE: OCD, depression, ODD, LD, etc) also better describes for me the reason 70 to 88% of adult ADDers have another co existing condition.

Scattered

Umnichu and I were just discussing this very thing in his thread about starting medication. There is definately a more linear step by step approach and a higher liklihood of getting started and then actually staying with the project (evidence of improved executive function performance), but the speed definately suffers.I hadn't noticed barbyma's statement about this. So I guess I'm not alone. Misery loves company... :p

Now I'm not sure if that is specifically the multitasking that is hampered or as my executive functions reign in my extremely strong emotional response there is just less anxiety producing driveness. My psychologist early on told me that my high anxiety level combined with hyperfocus is probably what enabled me to function well in school by pulling off last minute projects, papers, etc in spite of my ADHD.
I have definitely been fueled by anxiety in the past. I can still get adrelaline-fueled rushes now, with my anxiety chemically surpressed. It's like I'm rushing, but am not particularly worried about what will happen if I fail. Perhaps the push isn't as strong, but I'm still a lot faster this way than when on meds.

Cool more post! Pop in and look at some stuff (forgot Browns first name, remembered seeing it here) be right back after my "executive functions" or lack there of get done with a letter to an editor, another stupid ADD article Grrrrrr......have to moderate my self during these times no **** filters. Then I shall look forward to reading this stuff.

The ability to inhibit your behavior is not just one of many mental abilities. It is the foundation. It is the foundation to all things you consider uniquely human about human mental activity. This is the foundation, the ability to wait, the ability to stop responding and not respond to an event.
…that’s a pretty strong statement, isn’t it?

I doubt you’d find much general acceptance of Barkley’s take on this, at least not without some modulation of the rhetoric. For example, it’s doubtful that he has any real basis for his claim that the ability to inhibit a response to stimuli is what makes us “uniquely human".

Even if he’s worked out some bizarre rationale for making such an extraordinary statement, there’s little doubt he would have some trouble backing it up with facts. Lots of species exhibit behavior essentially identical to what he describes, largely because they use the same kinds of neural structures we do.

If they didn’t, we wouldn’t waste our time studying their brains, would we?

We don’t see any connection between any appearance (to some) that inhibition might be central to sculpting our behavior and the actual neural mechanisms the likely underlie the externally observable behavioral artifacts that give rise to that appearance.

It’s just one of many possible accidental patterns that seem to signal underlying structure. Unfortunately, all Barkley’s describing here is a kind of high-class illusion.

This sort of problem is exactly why we insist on applying at least some real structural principles, to connect the patterns we think we see with the actual machinery we know to be at work under the hood.

We’ll repeat our usual request: if anyone knows of any work establishing the validity of the abstraction ‘executive’, please tell us where we can find a copy.

As far as we know, no such work exists. The concept of an ‘executive’ is only valid in the context Barkley cites, that of patterns he sees in externally observable behavior. It is in no way valid to extend the concept to imply real neural structures.

We don’t even see these patterns, although we can certainly see why he believes they exist. The patterns that we (and many others) ‘see’ in the same behavior he observes is the normal function of neural structures processing input, analyzing it in context, mapping a rational response, applying it in that context, modifying the result to match the observed responses, and so on.

There is much within that process that might appear to be inhibition, but it’s purely an artifact of how we model behavior. There’s no ‘executive’ anywhere to be seen, and none is needed.

--Tom and Kay

...and Barkley on what he believes to be the 4 executive functions. I had to post that for you Meadd, so that you compare it to Brown's ideas.

What are the Four Executive Functions?

What are the executive functions? The first executive function—neuropsychologists gave it a fancy name: nonverbal working memory. What is it? Sensing to yourself. The first thing that the young child does in human development is they take their sensory motor behavior and make it private. What’s the most important human sense? Vision. Second, hearing. What do humans turn on themselves and make covert? Vision and hearing. You are capable of visual imagery and private audition, and in fact you are capable of taking every sense and making it private and using it in your head. You can see to yourself, hear to yourself, touch to yourself, taste to yourself, smell to yourself. I can taste the merlot I had last night with a New York strip steak. I can re-savor that moment, I can hear the conversation with the waitress, I can replay the restaurant, I can draw you a map of that restaurant downstairs through visual imagery. No other species does this with two exceptions—dolphins and chimpanzees may have a nonverbal system.

Humans start with this visual imagery, private audition, sensing to yourself. This is what you call mental activity, the capacity to re-sense an event and hold it in mind because you’re going to use that to control your behavior. It’s a two-step process: re-sensing the past event and using it to plan a future response; looking back to look ahead. You know this as hindsight and foresight, and the word “sight” is no mistake, because among all of the senses, it is visual imagery we use the most. And second to that, private hearing. We can do it all together, sense to ourselves. We start doing this during the first three months of life. By age twelve months, the human infant and toddler are more capable of this than any other species on this planet.

Notice the list of everything that is given you by a nonverbal system. You can sense to yourself all of these becoming possible, because all of these come out of sensing to the self. There can be no imitation without this system. Because what are you imitating? Not the behavior of the other. You’re imitating a visual image of the behavior of the other person. There can be no imitation unless there is a nonverbal working memory system, which is why very few species imitate and only humans do vicarious learning. Vicarious learning is not where I do what you do, it’s where I do the opposite. I watch your mistakes and it immediately changes my behavior. Imitation is mimicry, doing what you do. Crank it up a notch and do the opposite. I don’t need to make the same mistakes. I learn from yours. Humans are the only species that shows vicarious learning. There are a few other species that imitate and they are the ones I’ve already told you about, which is why we think they have a nonverbal system.

This one you probably didn’t think about, the psychological sense of time that comes out of this executive function, your ability to sense the passage of time. Why do we have this? To anticipate and get ready for the future. Without this system, by the way, there would be no past tense or any future tense in language, because what are you referring to? When you use past and future tense you are referring to images of the past and anticipation of the future.

So, here’s a prediction, never attempted by any theory of AD/HD. AD/HD delays all of this. Well does it? Do people with AD/HD have problems with sense of time? You’re damn right they do. Do people with AD/HD have trouble anticipating the future? You bet. They live in the now. Like Dennis the Menace, isn’t it always now? Don’t talk to me about tomorrow. Don’t talk to me about next week. Doesn’t matter. Now, now, now.

Here’s an interesting prediction: I predict that if you study young preschool AD/HD children, they will not develop past and future tense in language as early as other children. If my theory is wrong, you won’t find any differences, and that part of the theory is dead. But I will bet you it’s true. I’ve actually already tested it through interviews with parents about AD/HD children. They do not refer to time, the past and future in language as much as other children do. Other children start talking about tomorrow, next week, next month much earlier than AD/HD kids do. AD/HD adults have a terrible sense of time. We have now finished our fifth study of sense of time. AD/HD destroys it, right down to intervals as short as 10 seconds. Time escapes them.

Now, let’s juxtapose that finding with this finding. Modern human culture worships time. The bestselling books in nonfiction section of bookstores are time management books, and you have a disorder that destroys the sense of time. AD/HD is the consummate disorder of time management. We start out living in the now as preschoolers. As we get older, this window opens. Looking back, to look ahead, and it gets wider and wider and wider, until in our early 30s this window is 8-12 weeks out. Most of the decisions you and I are making are for events that lie about 8-12 weeks out. We can anticipate further out, but that’s our average fore-period for decision-making. AD/HD slams that window shut. AD/HD makes you live in the now. What does that mean? It means you will not get ready for the future until it’s here.

So, let me give you another name for AD/HD: time blindness. AD/HD creates a nearsightedness to the future, a temporal myopia, so that the individual is always waiting until the event is here, imminent, before they do anything to get ready. That is a fascinating insight into this disorder, that people with AD/HD have a temporal neglect syndrome. They cannot anticipate events that lie ahead and use it to guide their behavior, and it doesn’t matter how much you talk about the future. They will not get ready for an event until it crosses their time horizon, and their time horizon is right here, smack in front of them. Now you know why everything is left to the last minute all the time, always late, never ready, never prepared, never has materials, right? Do you see how devastating AD/HD in a modern culture would be?

Time-blindness alone would devastate you. That would be a serious disability in the adult population, but it’s only one, and there are three more. Here’s the second one: internalization of speech. Indeed, you can’t develop speech without the first one, because what are symbols? Words are simply arbitrary noises that we associate with visual images and other events. Language doesn’t develop until the working memory system is underway. Internalization of speech comes next. My theory predicts that people with AD/HD will be delayed in all of these. It’s an easy prediction because there are already seven studies that show that this is true. But here would be the implications. Do you see where some of the inattention symptoms are coming from? Forgetful in daily activities, can’t follow through on rules and instructions, skips from one uncompleted activity to another—behavior is not being guided by internal language. Now you know why they don’t follow through with rules and instructions. Now you know why it doesn’t matter what rules you give them. It isn’t going to control them. Language is not controlling the motor system as early as it should.

So go ahead, teach him to talk to himself. Do cognitive therapy. Now you know why cognitive therapy fails for AD/HD, because cognitive therapy assumes internalized speech. And in AD/HD you cannot assume that. They are 40 percent delayed in the internalization of language. You can’t comprehend what you read if you can’t read silently to yourself and hold it in mind and convert it to its meaning, its images. So now you know why AD/HD adults are going to have reading comprehension deficits. But it’s not a reading problem. It’s a working memory problem. They can’t hold the information in mind to get the meaning out of it, so they have to read, and reread and reread and halfway down the page they forget what was at the top of the page and have to go back to the top again.

The third behavior that humans make private is emotion. Emotion to others becomes emotion to myself, becomes private emotion that you can’t see. Every once in a while I catch you doing it; every once in a while you laugh out loud at a joke you’re telling yourself and don’t suppress the laughter. Every once in a while tears well up in your eyes as hard as you try to fight showing those signs of emotional arousal. Humans are capable of private emotion to themselves. We appear to be the only species that does this one. We take emotions to others, turn it on ourselves, and make it private. So that by the time you grow up, you are capable of a whole range of covert emotions that other people can’t see. I can’t measure them. I could measure your respiration, your heart rate, your skin conductance, and I could see whether you’re in the midst of an emotion, but I won’t see the muscle movements, the covert part of the emotion. I’ll just see what are called the autonomic nervous system signs of it.

If an event happens that causes us to have an emotion, as we get older, we use another emotion to counteract it. Suppose you make me angry? What do I do? Take a positive emotion, juxtapose it on the negative one to try to get myself over it. Count to 10, think positive thoughts, say nice things to yourself, move on. What are the most important emotions to control if you live in a group? Is it the positive emotions? Is it love, humor, affection? Nope. Showing those won’t cost you too much. It’s the negative ones. If you live in a group, you’ve got to be able to control the negative emotions. What does my theory say? AD/HD children will display their emotions more, and it will be the negative ones that cost them dearly in their peer relationships, because even though they are more silly, even though they may be more demonstrative, more passionate than other children, it’s the inability to regulate the negative ones that they’re going to pay a heavy social price for. This theory says that AD/HD children can’t keep their emotions to themselves. And cannot use other emotions to moderate them. AD/HD children are delayed in emotional self-regulation.

Most of you already know that people with AD/HD seem more emotional, but now you know why. They’re no more emotional than you are. They’re more demonstrative of their emotions than you are. You keep that emotion to yourself. They don’t. They impulsively show the emotion when it occurs.

This is the definition of an emotion in psychology: It’s a motivational state. If you can’t internalize emotion, you can’t internalize motivation. The third executive function is the source of intrinsic motivation. Let me give you a few words that laypeople use for intrinsic motivation: persistence, determination, ambition, drive, willpower. AD/HD children are not inattentive; they’re impersistent. AD/HD children don’t have an attention deficit; they have a motivation deficit. And the motivation deficit is an intrinsic motivation. They cannot generate the [internalized] motivation to get to the future. All future-directed behavior, all goal-directed behavior, all planned, thoughtful behavior requires intrinsic motivation. Why is that? Because the future hasn’t happened yet. How can it motivate you? You have to generate the motivation yourself. And if you can’t do this, you will not get to your goals, finish your projects, follow through on things, pay attention when things are boring. You will not be able to persist.

Now notice what this tells you. AD/HD individuals do not have difficulty when the motivation is provided in the environment. As long as you reward them for everything they do, they will do it. The problem they have is when there’s no reinforcement. And what’s a classic example of tasks that do not involve reinforcement? Schoolwork. Homework. Now you know why they can play Nintendo but not do their homework. Nintendo provides the motivation, the immediate consequences for everything you do. Homework does nothing. It just lays there. Solve a problem, no bells, no whistles, no coins, no flags, no sound effects, nothing, that’s it. Problem solved, right? To do homework you must have intrinsic motivation. To play Nintendo, you don’t.

So now you know why they can’t persist. Why they have a motivation deficit. One last thing, by the way. Part of motivation is level of arousal, which means they can’t regulate arousal either. It may be why they fall asleep, get bored, fade out in boring situations.

The final executive function is: play to yourself. I bet you thought play was just something kids do for fun. It isn’t. It is an absolutely crucial human developmental stage: play. Because humans take play with the physical world and make it mental play and make it covert. As a young child, I have to touch everything in sight. Play with it, take it apart, move it around, see what happens. But as I get older, I internalize it, so that I don’t need to touch the world around me anymore. I can play with the world in my head and never touch it. I could take that slide projector apart right now if I needed to. Because I’ve done it so many times before.

So, play to the self. This is the source of all innovation. This is the source of creative problem-solving. This is where we come up with new plans to solve old problems and get to our goals. This is not artistic or musical creativity. This is goal-directed creativity. The ability to problem-solve on the fly as we’re going towards the future whenever we encounter obstacles that get in our way, things that disrupt our plans. This is goal-directed, future-oriented innovation, and all cultural innovation came out of this. We can probably determine when in human evolution this module emerged, because it will be the beginning of rapid cultural change. When did it start? About 60,000 years ago. Prior to that time, humans were not particularly innovative. By the way, when did the first executive function appear in anthropology? Well, let me give you an example. No art would be possible without it. You cannot paint an image in a cave if there is no mental image to paint from. Look for the emergence of art in human evolution and you may see where the first executive function got started.

All right, these are all the things that you get from this executive function. One of them you may not have thought about is verbal fluency, because this is the module that takes old behavior apart and puts it together to form new sequences and to do it very fast. Now you know why AD/HD kids cannot do novel, complex motor sequences as fast as other children, because the module that does it is delayed. And they cannot speak as clearly as other children. If you put them on the spot, their language goes down. That’s fascinating about AD/HD. Why do AD/HD children talk so much until you ask them a question about their homework? AD/HD children talk more than other children; why? The second executive function; their language is not internalizing. They don’t talk more than other kids. They talk out loud more than other children.

But then why is it when you ask them a question about homework, they don’t generate anywhere near as much language as other children? Because the fourth executive function is delayed; they cannot put their ideas together quickly into a sequence to explain what they read, and so they will appear disfluent, and you will see three things that are fascinating about AD/HD. First, you will find they don’t generate as much language as other people when asked a question. Second, you will find that they mention only concrete specifics and miss the overarching theme of the assignment. And third, they will get the items out of sequence. They will get the temporal order wrong. We have only started to look at this, but the first three studies have demonstrated that is exactl