A meta-analysis on the relationship between subjective cognitive failures as measured by the cognitive failures questionnaire (CFQ) and objective performance on executive function tasks.

Abstract

The Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) has been widely used as a measure of subjective cognitive function in everyday life for decades. However, the evidence on how it relates to objective performance on executive function tasks is mixed. One possible reason for these mixed results is that the CFQ has selective relationships with some aspects of executive function and not others. Here, therefore, we classified tasks according to an influential framework of executive functions-switching, updating, inhibition, and we also considered the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) as a category because it was custom designed to gauge cognitive failures. We synthesized a large body of available evidence and performed four Bayesian meta-analyses on the relationship between CFQ scores and objective performance on executive function tasks in these four categories. Results suggested that CFQ scores were associated with objective performance on SART (18 effect sizes, μ = -.19, BF₁₀ = 18.03, i.e., 18.03 times more evidence of a relationship versus no relationship), updating working memory (49 effect sizes, μ = -.06, BF₁₀ = 17.80), and inhibition tasks (41 effect sizes, μ = -.07, BF₁₀ = 15.40), whereas there was not definitive evidence regarding switching (34 effect sizes, μ = -.06, BF₁₀ = .50, i.e., two times greater evidence for no relationship). This suggests that subjective cognitive function can predict objective performance on at least some executive function tasks. We discuss methodological and theoretical factors that constrain the maximum observable correlation and consider the relative insights that subjective measures versus task performance provide.