Reisberg, D. (2019). Cognition (7th ed.). W. W. Norton.
Textbook used by UCSD’s introductory Cognitive psychology course, COGS 101b.
Q. How does Reisberg define executive control?
A. The mechanisms that allow you to control your own thoughts; i.e. to keep your current goals in mind, so that they (and not habit) will guide your actions, and to organize steps in sequence to achieve those goals.
Q. Why does executive control create limits on your ability to divide your attention between two simultaneous tasks?
A. Executive control can only address one task at a time; so multitasking is only possible if one task is automatic.