Design cognitive flexibility tasks controlling working memory and inhibition demands and matching accuracy across age cohorts¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 3 claims (1 for, 2 mixed) · 2 studies (2 review), q2 · 1 of 2 report an effect size · 3 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The review recommends that researchers "design tasks to isolate activations associated specifically with cognitive flexibility, while separating or controlling for the activity from working memory and inhibitory control processes". It further advises matching accuracy levels between child and adult cohorts to control task difficulty, designing tasks that produce a switch cost, and conducting psychometric analyses before novel fMRI tasks.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Tasks should produce a switch cost to be valid measures
• Psychometric analyses should be conducted prior to novel fMRI tasks

Constraints¶

• Matching groups on accuracy with tasks of differing difficulty may introduce confounds due to inherent differences between tasks
• Behavioral matching may not be an ecologically valid representation of the real world

Target Learners¶

• children
• adults
• clinical populations such as ASD

Target Learning Goals¶

• reliable measurement of cognitive flexibility in neuroimaging studies

Claims¶

• Cognitive flexibility develops protractedly: sharp increase between 7 and 9 years, largely mature by age 10, peaking between 21 and 30 [+W]
• Children use qualitatively different strategies from adults for flexible cognition, shifting control strategies around 8 to 9 years of age [~W]
• Task-switching training improves untrained switching and other executive functions in school-aged children, though transfer findings are heterogeneous [~W]

Related Strategies¶

• Consider isolated cognitive flexibility practice and later-year timing instead of embedding flexibility practice within phonics activities
• Inhibition Support Strategies

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Dajani, D. R., & Uddin, L. Q. (2015). Demystifying cognitive flexibility: Implications for clinical and developmental neuroscience. Trends in Neurosciences. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2015.07.003