Cognitive control is not only componential, but those components may interact in complicated ways in the service of cognitive control tasks. This complexity poses a challenge for developing an ontological description, because the mapping may not be direct between our task descriptions and true component differences reflected in indicators. To illustrate this point, I discuss two examples: (a) the relationship between adaptive gating and working memory and (b) the recent evidence for a control hierarchy. From these examples, I argue that (...) an ontological program must simultaneously seek to identify component processes and their interactions within a broader processing architecture. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the psychological process of selectively attending to one source of information to the exclusion of others. In a meta-analysis, it reviews different tasks used to study selective attention, under the construct of conflict resolution, as assessed with functional imaging techniques. Both the anterior cingulate cortex and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex are involved in some aspect of conflict resolution, which is likely related to different mechanisms. The theme of heterogeneity of function is reflected in these results.