Orientation and Executive Control are two processes of consciousness that pertain to attention.
A normally functioning person would be shocked to see such a thing as a piano on the ceiling. Actually the normal person wouldnât even see it, because it didnât exist. For the patient is was an internally generated image.
Hence, with diminished orientation (an altered state of consciousness) there is a figure-ground capability but it gets interfused with imagery which, is quite a different thing.
Suffice it to say that for our purposes here, to understand a credible figure-ground experience, we need to consider the highest level of orientation and consciousness.
Executive Control relates to motivation. Individuals who have had a frontal lobotomy are satisfactorily oriented but lack the motivation to do many of the things they did before (which in some cases is why the lobotomy was performed).