Do as you say, not as you do; goal neglect explained by the unity of executive functions.

摘要

Goal neglect is a phenomenon where known task demands are temporarily ignored. Although goal neglect is thought to be a unitary construct tapping general cognitive control ability, its construct validity has never been tested, nor has goal neglect been compared to measures of specific executive functions. The current study uses an individual-differences, latent variable approach to test whether goal neglect forms a coherent construct and to determine the relationship between goal neglect and other well-established executive functions (task shifting and updating of working memory representations). Though some degree of separability is observed across subtypes of goal neglect tasks, the results suggest that goal neglect indeed forms a coherent construct. While this construct shares some variance with specific executive functions, it was the common variance across executive tasks that showed a complete overlap with goal neglect, suggesting that these two constructs are tapping the same ability. Furthermore, the previously established close relationship between goal neglect and general fluid intelligence was fully mediated by this common executive ability.