Figure 4.

Executive competition and threat. Executive functions can be viewed as relying on multiple mechanisms, also referred to as resources (R1 through R4; e.g., “shifting”, “updating”), that are partly independent but, critically, are also shared (indicated by the orange circle). When threat content is high, these shared resources (“SR”) are engaged, thus detracting from the ability to recruit specific mechanisms at optimal levels. Consequently, behavioral performance relying on those mechanisms will be impaired.