Cognitive flexibility in preschoolers: the role of representation activation and maintenance

Abstract

Preschoolers' lack of cognitive flexibility has often been attributed to perseverative processing. This study investigates alternative potential sources of difficulty such as deficits in activating previously ignored information and in maintaining currently relevant information. In Experiment 1, a new task tapping attentional switching was designed to isolate the difficulty of overriding an initial representation, that is, perseverative processing ('Perseveration' version), and the difficulty of activating a previously ignored representation, that is, activation deficit ('Activation-deficit' version). Three-year-olds' performance suggested that inflexibility may primarily stem from an activation deficit. Control experiments confirmed that the difficulty of the 'Activation-deficit' version could not be attributed to the effect of attraction to novelty. In Experiment 2, 'distraction' errors, alleged to reflect a failure to maintain a relevant representation, and 'perseverative' errors were distinguished. The results highlighted the important role of representation maintenance in flexibility. The present study indicates that preschoolers' lack of cognitive flexibility is multi-determined and prompts us to reconsider the role of perseveration.

The processes underlying flexibility in childhood

“…In contrast, most 4-and 5-year-old children successfully switch dimension, hence behaving flexibly (e.g., Kirkham, Cruess, & Diamond, 2003;Kloo & Perner, 2005;Zelazo et al, 2003). Such a progress in set shifting occurring between 3 and 5 years of age has been confirmed by similar age trends observed on other tasks including the Preschool Attentional Switching Task (PAST; Chevalier & Blaye, 2008) and Flexible Induction of Meaning task (FIM; Deák, 2000).…”

“…In contrast, flexibility has mainly been investigated in preschoolers using paradigms reminiscent of the WCST, in which the children must sort cards (Frye, Zelazo, & Palfai, 1995;Zelazo, Frye, & Rapus, 1996;Zelazo, Müller, Frye, & Marcovitch, 2003), or choose items (Chevalier & Blaye, 2008;Deák, 2000;Espy, 1997;Espy & Cwik, 2004;Jacques & Zelazo, 2001;Smidts, Jacobs, & Anderson, 2004), on the basis of various perceptual features, typically colour and shape. The Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS; Frye et al, 1995;Zelazo, 2006) is undoubtedly the most widespread of such paradigms.…”

Setting goals to switch between tasks: Effect of cue transparency on children’s cognitive flexibility.

“…Previous work has focused on variables involved in the switching process (e.g., inhibition; Bialystok & Martin, 2004;Kirkham, Cruess, & Diamond, 2003;negative priming;Chevalier & Blaye, 2008;Zelazo, Müller, Frye, & Marcovitch, 2003). In contrast, the cognitive complexity and control theory (Zelazo et al, 2003) posits that flexibility depends on the ability to organize tasks into a hierarchical structure and to use this framework to select the relevant task.…”

“…Indeed measures of flexibility are differently demanding in terms of task goal setting. In measures such as the standard DCCS or the PAST (Chevalier & Blaye, 2008), goal setting is ensured by the experimenter, who explicitly announces when a switch occurs and reminds children of the relevant task (sorting criterion) and related rules on every trial. In contrast, tasks that have been found particularly difficult for older preschoolers require children to decide on their own when and what to switch to on the basis of, often arbitrary, cues (e.g., Advanced DCCS, Shape School, FIM) or with no external support (e.g., OCTC, FIST).…”

Desempeño en funciones ejecutivas y síntomas comórbidos asociados en niños con Trastorno por déficit de atención con hiperactividad (TDAH)

“…Y la inhibición cognitiva se refiere a la supresión de información irrelevante o innecesaria de la memoria de trabajo, pero no de la memoria de reconocimiento (Miyake et al, 2000), lo que hace posible una atención selectiva y sostenida (Diamond, 2006). La flexibilidad cognitiva se define como la capacidad para alternar rápidamente una u otra respuesta, la habilidad de cambiar a estrategias más efectivas entre conjuntos de respuestas, de dividir la atención respondiendo a las demandas cambiantes de una tarea o situación (Anderson, 2002;Mateo & Vilaplana Gramaje, 2007) y la habilidad para mantener una representación intacta cuando los cambios son irrelevantes (Chevalier & Blaye, 2008). La planificación y organización se refieren a la capacidad para identificar y organizar una secuencia de eventos con el fin de lograr una meta específica (Rosselli, Jurado, & Matute, 2008).…”