The processes underlying flexibility in childhood

Abstract

It is now well established in the adult literature that the ability to engage in flexible thought and action is a complex skill that relies on a number of underlying processes. The development of this skill has received growing interest in recent years. However, theories explaining children's ability to switch between different tasks typically focus on a single underlying process and are rarely extended to explain development beyond the preschool years. This article reviews the current literature on set shifting in children in comparison with task switching in adults, in order to highlight the range of factors that impact on children's ability to flexibly shift between tasks. In doing this we hope to set the scene for future research that can begin to establish the relationships between these processes and how they change with age.

Sustained selective attention predicts flexible switching in preschoolers

“…Basic properties of the cognitive system seem to ensure both stability and flexibility. On the side of stability, the processing of immediate input emerges within the current state of the system such that there is a pull toward the just immediate past, a pull evident in phenomena such as priming (Gershkoff-Stowe, Connell & Smith, 2006; Huttenlocher, Vasilyeva, & Shimpi, 2004; Naito, 1990; Thothathiri & Snedeker, 2008) and perseveration (Cragg & Chevalier, 2012; Deák, 2003; Smith & Samuelson, 1997; Smith, Thelen, Titzer, & McLin, 1999). On the side of flexibility, processes of habituation, the attraction of the unexpected, and internal control processes, work to shift attention and thoughts in new directions (Addyman & Mareschal, 2012; Horst, Samuelson, Kucker & McMurray, 2011; Kidd, Piantadosi, & Aslin, 2012; Miyake, Friedman, Emerson, Witzki, Howerter & Wager, 2000).…”

Underpinnings of the Costs of Flexibility in Preschool Children: The Roles of Inhibition and Working Memory

“…In the present study, we draw upon the switch cost literature (see Cragg & Chevalier, in press, and Meiran, 2010, for reviews in children and adults, respectively) to better explicate the relations of inhibition and working memory to flexibility. In adults, for example, whose executive control is mature, switching between tasks generates slower response latencies (sometimes with a concurrent reduction in accuracy) in comparison to performance on either task alone, a phenomenon that has been termed ‘switch cost’ (e.g., Monsell, 2003).…”

Developmental changes in using verbal self-cueing in task-switching situations: the impact of task practice and task-sequencing demands

“…To assess developmental changes in goal maintenance and cognitive flexibility in middle childhood, researchers have used several variants of the task-switching paradigm, such as cued task-switching paradigms in which the next task is indicated by a cue (e.g., Crone et al, 2004; Karbach and Kray, 2007; Manzi et al, 2011) or alternating runs paradigms in which the sequence of tasks is predictable and subjects have to switch the task on every second trial (e.g., Kray et al, 2008, 2010, 2012b; Karbach and Kray, 2009; for a review, see Cragg and Chevalier, 2012). In both of these types of paradigms, participants have to perform two easy categorization tasks, such as classifying objects as a dog or a car (in task A) or classifying their color as red or blue (in task B).…”