Executive function is a set of mental skills that we humans use to plan, hold information in working memory, and generally get things done. Collectively, these are often referred to as “cognitive control,” and they go a long way in explaining what makes humans unique in the animal kingdom. Not other animal can plan in the way we do, thinking decades ahead and making sacrifices now for that far off future.

So how does executive function work? In this episode of the Thinking Tools Podcast, I speak with Dr. David Badre, a cognitive neuroscientist and the author of this 2020 book, On Task: How Our Brain Gets Things Done, (2020, PRinceton University Press) which is all about cognitive control.

David Badre is Professor of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences at Brown University, where he is also on the faculty of the Carney Institute for Brain Science. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan. He received his PhD from MIT and did his postdoctoral fellowship at UC Berkeley before joining Brown as faculty in 2008. His laboratory studies the neuroscience of cognitive control and executive function.

Thanks for your time and I hope you have a great weekend.
Andrew
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