executive function

noun

psychology

: the group of complex mental processes and cognitive abilities (such as working memory, impulse inhibition, and reasoning) that control the skills (such as organizing tasks, remembering details, managing time, and solving problems) required for goal-directed behavior

The biggest impacts, she says, are in enhancing what's known as executive function—the ability to perform complex tasks that rely on planning or decision making.

—Janet Raloff

also : one of these complex mental processes

But a new study reports that soccer players actually have superior executive functions, the brain processes responsible for planning and abstract thinking.

—Sindya N. Bhanoo

executive functioning noun

Measures of attention, hyperactivity, and executive functioning (the ability to process feedback, interpret life's good and bad moments, and react in an appropriate way to events) were based on reports from parents and teachers …

—David Kirby

Examples of executive function in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Cognitive development included the health of a child’s executive function skills, decision-making, memory, attention, learning, IQ and academic performance. —Kristen Rogers, CNN Money, 16 June 2025

Movement, music, time outside, games with peers and activities like puzzles all help children build skills like self-regulation and executive function. —Claire Cain Miller, New York Times, 31 May 2025

Maternal postpartum depression and children's emotional overeating: The mediating role of executive function. —Thomas G. Moukawsher, Newsweek, 21 Mar. 2025

Children develop their executive function skills primarily through their closest relationships, particularly with their parents. —Charell G. Coleman, Forbes, 26 Feb. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1972, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for executive function

• adjunction
• compunction
• conjunction
• disjunction
• dysfunction
• injunction
• inunction
• malfunction
• eigenfunction
• multifunction
• heterojunction
• junction