so I have a confession to make I only
recently learned how to drive and it was
really hard now this wasn't an older
brain thing do you remember what it was
like when you first learned how to drive
when every decision you made was so
conscious and deliberate I come home
from my lessons completely wiped out
mentally now as a cognitive scientist I
know that this is because I was using a
lot of something called executive
function executive function is our
amazing ability to consciously control
our thoughts emotions and actions in
order to achieve goals like learning how
to drive it's what we use when we need
to break away from habit inhibit our
impulses and plan ahead but we can see
it most clearly when things go wrong
like have you ever accidentally poured
orange juice on your cereal or ever
start scrolling on Facebook and suddenly
realize you've missed a meeting or maybe
this one's more familiar ever plan to
stop at the store on the way home from
work and then drive all the way home
instead on autopilot these things happen
to everyone and we usually call it
absent mindedness but what's really
happening is we're experiencing a lapse
in executive function so we use
executive function every day in all
aspects of our lives
and over the past 30 years researchers
have found that it predicts all kinds of
good things in childhood and Beyond like
social skills academic achievement
mental and physical health making money
saving money and even staying out of
jail sounds great doesn't it
so it's no surprise that researchers
like me are so interested in
understanding it and figuring out ways
to improve it but lately executive
function has become a huge
self-improvement buzzword people think
you can
prove it through brain training iPhone
apps and computer games where by
practicing it in a specific way like
playing chess and researchers are trying
to train it in the lab in the hopes of
improving it and other things related to
it like intelligence well I'm here to
tell you that this way of thinking about
executive function is all wrong
brain training won't improve executive
function in a broad sense because it
involves exercising in a narrow way
outside of the real world context in
which we actually use it so you can
master that executive function app on
your phone but that's not going to help
you stop pouring OJ on your Cheerios
twice a week if you really want to
improve your executive function in a way
that matters for your life you have to
understand how its influenced by context
let me show you what I mean there's a
great test that we use in the lab to
measure executive function in young
children called with the dimensional
change card sort in this task kids have
to sort cards in one way like by a shape
over and over until they build up a
habit and then they're asked to switch
and sort the same cards in another way
like by color now really young kids
struggle with this three and
four-year-olds will usually keep sorting
the cards in the old way no matter how
many times you remind them of what they
should be doing we're not going to play
the color game anymore now we're going
to play the shaking and in the shape
game all the stars that go here and all
the trucks go here okay
stars come here Travis go here where did
the stars go and where did the tracks go
excellent ok
stars been here trucks go here here's a
truck
stars I'm here trucks go here here's
this time so it's really compelling and
it's really obvious when she fails to
use her executive function but here's
the thing we could train her on this
task and others like it and eventually
she improve but does that mean that she
would have improved her executive
function outside of the lab no because
in the real world she'll need to use
executive function to do a lot more than
switching between shape and color she'll
need to switch from adding to
multiplying or from playing to tidying
up or from thinking about her own
feelings to thinking about her friend
and success in real world situations
depends on things like how motivated you
are and what your peers are doing and it
also depends on the strategies that you
execute when you're using executive
function in a particular situation so
what I'm saying is that context really
matters now let me give you an example
from my research I recently brought in a
bunch of kids to do the classic
marshmallow test which is a measure of
delay of gratification that also likely
requires a lot of executive function so
you may have heard about this test but
basically kids are given a choice they
can have one marshmallow right away or
if they can wait for me to go to the
other room and get more marshmallows
they can have two instead now most kids
really want that second marshmallow but
the key question is how long can they
wait now I added a twist to look at the
effects of context I told each kid that
they were in a group like the green
group and I even gave them a green
t-shirt to wear and I said your group
waited for two marshmallows in this
other group the orange group did not or
I said the opposite your group didn't
wait for two marshmallows and this other
group did and then I left the kid alone
in the room and I watched on a webcam to
see how long they waited
so what I found was that kids who
believed that their group waited for two
marshmallows were themselves more likely
to wait so they were influenced by a
peer group that they'd never even met
pretty cool isn't it well so with this
result I still didn't know if they were
just copying their group at first it
were if it was something deeper than
that
so I brought in some more kids and after
the marshmallow test I brought I showed
them pictures of pairs of kids and I
told them one of these kids likes to
have things right away like cookies and
stickers and the other kid likes to wait
so that they can have more of these
things and then I asked them which one
of these two kids do you like more and
who would you want to play with and what
I found was that kids would believe that
their group waited tended to prefer
other kids who liked to wait for things
so learning what their group did made
them value waiting more and not only
that these kids likely used executive
function to generate strategies to help
themselves wait like sitting on their
hands or turning away from the
marshmallow or singing a song to
distract themselves so what this all
shows is that it's just how much context
matters it's not that these kids had
good executive function or bad it's that
the context helped them use it better so
what does this mean for you and for your
kids well let's say that you want to
learn Spanish you could try changing
your context and surrounding yourself
with other people who also want to learn
and even better if these are people that
you really like that way you'll be more
motivated to use executive function or
let's say that you want to help your
child do better on her math homework you
could teach her strategies to use
executive function in that particular
context like putting her phone away
before she starts studying or planning
to reward herself after studying for an
hour now I don't want to make it sound
like context is everything
executive function is really
complex it's shaped by numerous factors
but what I want you to remember is if
you want to improve your executive
function in some aspect of your life
don't look for quick fixes think about
the context and how you can make your
goals matter more to you and how you can
use strategies to help yourself in that
particular situation I think the ancient
Greeks said it best when they said know
thyself and a key part of this is
knowing how context shapes your behavior
and how you can use that knowledge to
change for the better thank you
[Applause]