Cognitive Flexibility Or Flexibilities? New Insights From A Classroom Study
Résumé
There is an ongoing debate in the scientific community regarding the nature of cognitive flexibility. It is either seen as a general ability, a task-dependent skill, or a dimensional construct composed of reactive flexibility and spontaneous flexibility. To develop the discussion, we compared first-graders’ performance on four cognitive flexibility tasks. Two tasks focused on reactive flexibility (rule-switching and verbally-cued-switching), and two targeted spontaneous flexibility (role-shifting and divergent thinking). We also used three tests of executive functions (cognitive inhibition, working memory, and processing speed) to evaluate their link with cognitive flexibility. Significant positive correlations emerged between all but one of the flexibility tasks, regardless of whether they targeted a reactive or spontaneous use of flexibility. Similarly, confirmatory factorial analyses did not provide evidence for the dimensional structure of cognitive flexibility. These results suggest that different flexibility tasks may tap into distinct aspects of a task-dependent ability, rather than a generalized competence.