Executive attention
This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
This article has been tagged since September 2007.
Inevitably situations arise where it is advantageous to have cognition independent of incoming sensory data or motor responses. There is a general consensus in psychology that there is an executive system based in the frontal cortex that controls our thoughts and actions to produce coherent behavior. This function is often referred to as executive function, executive attention, or cognitive control.
No exact definition has been agreed upon. However, typical descriptions involve maintaining behavioral goals, and using these goals to as a basis for choosing what aspects of the environment to attend to and which action to select.