Context, Content Effects and Flexibility

Leveraging cognitive flexibility through flexible categorization training

“…It underscores the necessity to explore further the specific cognitive processes underlying the expression of cognitive flexibility, in order to design effective school-based interventions as well as more efficient teacher training. While it may be argued that attentional flexibility has a limited impact in the classroom, the frequently overlooked representational flexibility appears to be crucial for grasping the underlying structure of problems (Gros & Gvozdic, 2022). This aspect of cognitive flexibility, relying on flexible categorization, emerges as a promising focus for school interventions aimed at improving both near and far transfer.…”

“…In the context of problemsolving, for instance, achieving a successful solution often requires more than just a shift of attention. It requires individuals to flexibly re-interpret or re-represent the situation at hand (Davidson & Sternberg, 2003;Gamo et al, 2010;Gros & Gvozdic, 2022). This notion of representational flexibility is multi-faceted; it not only relies on attentional processes to recognize environmental cues -such as discerning when the current strategy is not optimalbut also depends on the ability to flexibly (re)categorize the problem by re-interpreting both the problem and the goal in order to discover the solution.…”

“…Semantic recoding and re-categorization of the situation appear to be among the core cognitive processes that contribute to flexible responses in problem-solving (Clément, 2009(Clément, , 2022Clerc & Clément, 2016;Scheibling-Sève et al, 2020). In fact, when faced with a problem, adopting a new and more abstract point of view can help individuals to identify the underlying structure of the problem and discover a previously unseen path to its solution (Gros & Gvozdic, 2022). This underscores the importance of being able to approach problems flexibly and from multiple perspectives in order to find successful solutions (Clément, 2009;Gros et al, 2020).…”

Uncovering the interplay between drawings, mental representations, and arithmetic problem-solving strategies in children and adults

“…Nevertheless, understanding the determinants of problems' representations is a crucial step in identifying the potential pitfalls and dead ends born from unsuitable representations, as well as to help develop transfer or learning in a school setting (Gros & Gvozdic, 2022). In this perspective, interventions specifically targeting representational change in arithmetic word problems provide rich insights into the benefits of representationoriented teaching (Fischer et al, 2019;Gvozdic et Sander, 2020;Iacono et al, 2022).…”

Cognitive Flexibility Or Flexibilities? Insights From A Classroom Study.

“…Cognitive flexibility has been shown to support the development of several skills from a young age, such as creative thinking (e.g., Arán Filippetti & Krumm, 2020;Ebersbach & Hagedorn, 2011;Pan & Yu, 2018;Runco, 2004), lexical and conceptual knowledge (e.g., Blaye & Bonthoux, 2001;Blaye & Maintenant, 2008;Deák, 2003;Duvignau et al, 2007), problem solving (Clément, 2009(Clément, , 2022Gros, Thibaut, & Sander, 2020;Raynal, 2022;Zelazo & Frye, 1998), as well as many aspects of school achievement such as mathematics, reading, and literacy (e.g., Arán Filippetti & Richaud, 2017;Bull & Scerif, 2001;Gros & Gvozdic, 2022;Iacono, Gros, & Clément, 2022;Titz & Karbach, 2014;Yeniad et al, 2013). For instance, it has been suggested that cognitive flexibility development contributes to reading fluency in early readers by helping them to switch between phonological and semantic word properties (Cartwright et al, 2019).…”