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Cognitive Flexibility in Young Children: Beyond Perseveration This is a repository copy of Cognitive Flexibility in Young Children: Beyond Perseveration. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/110130/ Version: Accepted Version Article: Carroll, D.J., Blakey, E. and FitzGibbon, L. (2016) Cognitive Flexibility in Young Children: Beyond Perseveration. Child Development Perspectives, 10 (4). pp. 211-215. ISSN 1750-8592 https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12192 Reuse Unless indicated otherwise, fulltext items are protected by copyright with all rights reserved. The copyright exception in section 29 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 allows the making of a single copy solely for the purpose of non-commercial research or private study within the limits of fair dealing. The publisher or other rights-holder may allow further reproduction and re-use of this version - refer to the White Rose Research Online record for this item. Where records identify the publisher as the copyright holder, users can verify any specific terms of use on the publisher’s website. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Child Development Perspectives Cognitive Flexibility in Young Children: A New Perspective Journal: Child Development Perspectives ManuscriptFor ID Draft Review Only Wiley - Manuscript type: Article Keywords: Cognitive flexibility Executive function Working memory Cognitive flexibility is the ability to rapidly ad%ust our thoughts and behaviors in response to changes around us. Although the preschool period has been hugely influential in helping to develop our understanding of how this vital ability emerges progress has been greatly slowed in recent years due to a combination of methodological issues. The authors outline recent Abstract: developments in the field that have directly addressed these issues and have led to both a more nuanced definition of cognitive flexibility and to a number of promising new experimental paradigms. For future research it will be essential that studies target both a broader range of ages and a broader range of behaviors in order to give a full account of how cognitive flexibility emerges in early childhood. Page 1 of 17 Child Development Perspectives Running Head: COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY IN YOUNG CHILDREN Abstract Cognitive fle ibility is the ability to rapidly adjust our thoughts and behaviors in response to changes around us. Although the preschool period has been hugely influential in helping to develop our understanding of how this vital ability emerges, progress has been greatly slowed in recent years due to a combination of methodological issues. The authors outline recent developments in the fieldFor that have Review directly addressed these Only issues, and have led to both a more nuanced definition of cognitive fle ibility, and to a number of promising new e perimental paradigms. For future research, it will be essential that studies target both a broader range of ages, and a broader range of behaviors, in order to give a full account of how cognitive fle ibility emerges in early childhood. .ey words: COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY/ EXECUTIVE FUNCTION/ INHIBITORY CONTROL/ 0OR.ING 1E1ORY Child Development Perspectives Page 2 of 17 COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY IN YOUNG CHILDREN Introduction One of the defining features of human cognition is its fle ibility 21, 2, 36. Cognitive fle ibility 2CF6 allows us to rapidly adapt our thoughts and behaviors in response to changing environmental demands and tas7 goals 286. CF is generally regarded as the emergent property of successful cognition 256, underpinned by e ecutive functions 2EF6 - specifically wor7ing memory and inhibitory control 266. Improvements in CF during the preschool years have been lin7ed to better theoryFor of mind s7ills Review 276, better language Onlyand reading ability 28, 96 and improvements across a range of academic s7ills 210, 116. The preschool period has thus been an important focal point for studying the development of fle ible goal-oriented behavior. The canonical view of CF development In its simplest sense, CF is the ability to bring a new behavior to an old or ongoing situation. Typically, this is operationalized by tas7s that reAuire children to update a tas7 rule - often by sorting stimuli in two different ways. Perhaps the best e ample of this is the Dimension Change Card Sort tas7 2DCCS/ 12, 136. On the standard DCCS tas7, children sort cards depicting colored shapes into trays, first by one rule 2e.g. color6, and then by a different rule 2e.g. shape6. The to-be-sorted cards match one tray according to color, and the other tray according to shape D so for e ample, children might sort cards depicting red fish and blue cats into trays depicting blue fish and red cats. In order to sort correctly, the child must update the rule they use to guide their behavior. PreschoolersE performance follows a clear trajectory. Three-year-olds are able to sort the cards consistently according to the initial rule. However, after the rule changes, most continue to use the initial rule, and so incorrectly perseverate. In contrast, 8-year-olds are able to successfully switch rules 2136. This developmental shift from perseverative to fle ible Page 3 of 17 Child Development Perspectives COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY IN YOUNG CHILDREN performance is an e tremely robust finding 2e.g. 18, 15, 166, and has led many to see7 to e plain the developmental processes that allow children to overcome this perseveration 2see 17 and 6 for reviews6. However, while this approach initially led to considerable advances in understanding CF, a number of issues have become apparent, which have hindered further progress in the field. CF is poorly defined Perhaps the mostFor pressing Reviewissue is that CF itself isOnly poorly defined. Commonly used definitions tend to be couched in the terms of the tas7 with which it is assessed - in other words, if a child is able to switch from sorting by one rule to sorting by another, then they demonstrate good CF. 0hile this appears to be a serviceable wor7ing definition, it Auic7ly loses its utility when one considers the large number of separate demands that must be met in order to succeed on typical CF tas7s. In addition to the core demand of updating the tas7 rule, these also include the need to selectively attend to different aspects of a stimulus/ the need to resolve response conflict 2that is, to select the correct rule when different aspects of a single stimulus are priming two conflicting rules6/ and the ability to coordinate and deploy these s7ills in concert. All of these are li7ely to contribute to good CF. However, there is no reason to suggest that children must meet all these demands simultaneously in order to show CF. Despite this, succeeding on standard CF tas7s reAuires children to meet these separate demands simultaneously. Ac7nowledging and addressing the multifaceted nature of CF is crucial for ma7ing further progress in understanding its development. Research addresses a narrow age range For decades, there has been an e tensive focus on how CF develops in 3- and 8-year-old children. This focus has generally been for methodological, rather than theoretical, reasons. The Child Development Perspectives Page 4 of 17 COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY IN YOUNG CHILDREN incidental demands of most CF tas7s ma7e them unsuitable for children younger than 3 years. CF tas7s typically reAuire children to follow Auite lengthy instructions. They also demand good selective attention 2e.g. so children focus on only stimulus shape, while ignoring its color6. 1oreover, preschool CF measures typically use a very small set size 2i.e. few e emplars of the rules to be sorted by - such as red and blue for color6/ counterintuitively, small set sizes have been shown to increase the difficulty of switching between rules 2186. This combination of diverse demands meansFor that early Reviewcompetencies in CF in Onlyyounger children may get overloo7ed. 2Although the focus of this paper is on CF in younger children, it is also worth noting that many important changes in CF also occur after the age of five 219, 206 and that the focus on 3- and 8- year-olds has left these changes out of the standard view of CF development.6 Overemphasising perseveration The shift from perseveration to fle ible behavior is commonly considered the 7ey transition in the early development of cognitive control 26, 21, 126. However, there are grounds to thin7 that the role of perseveration may have been greatly overstated. As an illustration: after the rule changes on the DCCS tas7, children have only two options available to them: to select the correct response, or to select the response that was correct according to the initial rule. Since children can only either sort correctly or ma7e a perseverative response, all errors they ma7e will by definition appear to be perseverative errors. CF tas7s of this 7ind can therefore tell us nothing about errors arising through inattention, distraction, failure to maintain tas7 set, or through any other means. It is entirely possible that the apparent prevalence of perseveration among preschoolers is in fact an artefact of tas7 design 2see 22, 23, for similar assertions6. Theoretical impasse Page 5 of 17 Child Development Perspectives COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY IN YOUNG CHILDREN This focus on a single type of error within a narrow age band has made it difficult to derive distinct, falsifiable theories to e plain the development of CF. Nevertheless, two influential accounts have been proposed to e plain how CF develops in childhood. The Graded Representations account proposes that wor7ing memory underpins CF development by allowing children to maintain tas7 rules 2286.
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