Tirapu-Ustárroz J, Muñoz-Céspedes J M
Servicio de Neuropsicología y Neuropsiquiatría, Clínica Ubarmin, Egüés, Navarra, Spain.
Rev Neurol. 2005;41(8):475-84.
The terms 'executive functioning' or 'executive control' refer to a set of mechanisms involved in the improvement of cognitive processes to guide them towards the resolution of complex problems. Both the frontal lobes, acting as structure, and the executive processes, acting as function, work with memory contents, operating with information placed in the diencephalic structures and in the medial temporal lobe. Generally, we can state that many works find an association between frontal damage and specific memory shortages like working memory deficit, metamemory problems, source amnesia, or difficulties in the prospective memory.
This paper is a critical review of the working memory concept and proposes a new term: the attentional operative system that works with memory contents. Concerning the metamemory, the frontal lobes are essential for monitoring processes in general and for 'the feeling of knowing' kind of judgements in particular.
Patients suffering prefrontal damage show serious problems to remember the information source. Thus, the information is rightly remembered but the spatiotemporal context where that information was learned has been forgotten. Finally, the prospective memory deals with remembering to make something in a particular moment in the future and performing the plan previously drawn up.
“执行功能”或“执行控制”这两个术语指的是一组参与改善认知过程以引导其解决复杂问题的机制。作为结构的额叶和作为功能的执行过程都与记忆内容协同工作，对位于间脑结构和内侧颞叶中的信息进行操作。一般来说，我们可以说许多研究发现额叶损伤与特定的记忆缺陷之间存在关联，如工作记忆缺陷、元记忆问题、源遗忘症或前瞻性记忆困难。
本文是对工作记忆概念的批判性综述，并提出了一个新术语：与记忆内容协同工作的注意力操作系统。关于元记忆，额叶对于一般的监控过程，特别是对于“知道感”类型的判断至关重要。
前额叶受损的患者在记住信息来源方面存在严重问题。因此，信息被正确记住，但学习该信息的时空背景却被遗忘了。最后，前瞻性记忆涉及记住在未来的特定时刻做某件事并执行先前制定的计划。
