Executive functions are a set of cognitive processes critical for psychological, social, and cognitive development which have recently received much attention. To explore more prominent keywords, countries, sources, and research clusters, bibliometric analysis is needed. This study conducts a bibliometric analysis on related documents entitled “executive function*”, adopted from Web of Science core collections. The quantitative part includes publication trends and average citations per year, top keywords, corresponding author’s country, and top journals. In the following, the qualitative analysis highlights the top 55 highly cited documents by categorizing the components of executive functions, related variables, instruments, and samples. The results show that the average citation per year related to executive functions documents has seven peaks from 1956 up to February 25, 2022. Top cited documents are mainly focused on childhood and based on 3 components of inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. This bibliometric study provides a clear perspective on the future research direction, highlighting potential opportunities and challenges in the field of executive functions.

Read more at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-023-05033-x