The Quest for Hemispheric Asymmetries Supporting and Predicting Executive Functioning

Vallesi, Antonino · 2021 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01646

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Summary

This narrative review examines the neural bases of two executive functions: criterion setting (the flexible selection of task rules and associations) and monitoring (the continuous evaluation of rule application). The paper focuses on the ROtman–Baycrest Battery to Investigate Attention (ROBBIA) model, originally derived from neuropsychological studies of patients with brain damage. The central research question is whether hemispheric asymmetries in executive functioning are domain-general or driven by specific task demands, particularly regarding the left lateralization of criterion setting. The author synthesizes multimodal evidence from functional neuroimaging (fMRI), electrophysiology (EEG/ERP), neurostimulation, and neuropsychology across both healthy individuals and patients. The review highlights specific experimental designs used to disentangle process-based asymmetries from domain-specific demands. For instance, fMRI studies manipulated verbal and spatial task-switching and inductive reasoning within the same participants to control for material type. Additionally, the paper reviews studies using nonverbal perceptual decision-making tasks and spatial versions of the Stroop task to test if left prefrontal involvement persists without verbal processing. The findings confirm that criterion setting is predominantly supported by left lateral prefrontal regions, including the inferior and middle frontal gyri. This lateralization holds across various contexts, such as rule search, flexible strategy selection, and interference resolution, even in nonverbal tasks. For example, switching from speed to accuracy in a perceptual task recruited the left middle frontal gyrus, and structural connectivity in the anterior corpus callosum predicted performance in nonverbal switching tasks. Conversely, monitoring is associated with right lateral prefrontal regions. The review notes that while left lateralization is robust for criterion setting, it can be modulated by task domain; for instance, spatial tasks may recruit additional right prefrontal activity or show different connectivity patterns compared to verbal tasks. Electrophysiological data further support these findings, showing left-lateralized theta and beta activity during interference resolution. The significance of this work lies in refining the understanding of executive function networks. It challenges the view that left prefrontal involvement is solely due to verbal demands, suggesting instead that the computational process of criterion setting itself is left-lateralized. The paper concludes that while the ROBBIA model provides a strong framework for hemispheric asymmetries in executive control, it is not an all-or-none division of labor. Future research should further fine-tune the model by exploring how these processes interact with other prefrontal gradients and distributed networks.

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• executive function