Someone has to put a stop
to
href="http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/08/semantic-stopsi.html">this.
More like this
When you need to stop yourself from committing some response, do you simply freeze - like a deer in the headlights - or can you selectively inhibit only the undesired action?
The last place I lived before small-town Davidson, North Carolina, was New York City. One thing that seemed extremely different to me when I moved from New York to Davidson was the behavior of pedestrians and drivers.
Although "executive function" may seem like an elusive topic for study, in cognitive neuroscience it is largely approached simply as the ability to control one's own behavior in accord with some goal, despite interference from previous experiences.
This is a classic problem. You are in a car heading straight towards a wall. Should you try to stop or should you try to turn to avoid the wall? Bonus question: what if the wall is not really wide so you don't have to turn 90 degrees?