Alan Baddeley
b. 1934 · UKWorking memory
Architect of the multi-component working-memory model.
Eight voices who shaped how we measure and theorise control — from working memory to developmental synthesis.
Portraits resolve via Wikimedia when licences allow.
People
Akira Miyake
b. 1960s · Japan/USAUnity/diversity
Latent-variable framework separating executive components.
Adele Diamond
b. 1952 · CanadaDevelopmental EF
Linked childhood experience to prefrontal control trajectories.
Patricia Goldman-Rakic
1937–2003 · USAdlPFC physiology
Cellular basis of prefrontal working memory in primates.
Michael Posner
b. 1936 · USAAttention networks
Network model of alerting, orienting and executive attention.
Earl Miller
b. 1962 · USAPFC dynamics
Rule representation and mixed selectivity in prefrontal ensembles.
Joaquín Fuster
b. 1930 · Spain/USATemporal organisation
Cortical memory and the temporal structure of action.
Tim Shallice
b. 1940 · UKSupervisory attention
Supervisory Attentional System model of frontal control.
Read primary papers before popular summaries.
Sources & research
- Executive functionsDevelopmental synthesis of EF components and interventions.DOIPubMed
- The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex "frontal lobe" tasks: a latent variable analysisCanonical unity/diversity latent-variable paper.DOIPubMed
- Working memory: looking back and looking forwardWorking-memory architecture overview.DOIPubMed
- An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex functionBiased competition account of PFC control.DOIPubMed
- The prefrontal cortex—an update: time is of the essenceTemporal organisation of frontal action.DOIPubMed
Keep exploring
More in Cognition
🧩
Memory
How the brain encodes, stores and retrieves experience across systems.
Research 75 🎯Attention
Selecting what enters awareness — and what the brain must ignore.
Research 88 💬Language
Speech, comprehension and the cortical networks that make meaning.
Research 74 💓Emotion
Affective circuits linking body states, appraisal and social meaning.
Research 67 ⚖️Decision-Making
Value, risk and control — how choices emerge from competing signals.
Research 66 😴Sleep
Oscillations, stages and the nightly work of memory and repair.
Research 97 🔄Neuroplasticity
How experience rewires synapses, maps and recovery trajectories.
Research 50 ✨Consciousness
Awareness, reportability and the hard problem still facing science.
Research 89 📚Learning
How practice, prediction and reward reshape circuits over time.
Research 90 👁️Perception
Building a usable world from noisy sensors and prior expectations.
Research 77 🔥Pain
A protective percept built from nociception, context and prediction.
Research 74 ⏳Brain Aging
Lifelong change in structure, networks and cognitive reserve.
Research 57 ✨Belief, Expectation & Becoming
Where self-help, manifestation metaphors and religious hope meet expectancy, attention and prediction — and where they overclaim.
Research 78 🕯️Contemplative Practice
Meditation, prayer and liturgy as trained attention and regulation — evidence, limits and cultural context.
Research 82 🤝Social Cognition
How brains read minds, faces and norms — theory of mind, empathy and the networks that make us social.
Research 85 🏃Motor Control
From intention to muscle — cortico-basal ganglia-cerebellar loops that select, time and correct movement.
Research 90