Contextual adaptation of cognitive flexibility in kindergartners and fourth graders

This study investigated the development of children's ability to find the optimal balance between flexibility and stability as a function of the frequency of required task switches. This question was addressed in two situations contrasting the dynamics of engagement of reconfiguration processes (reactive vs. proactive). A cued task-switching paradigm was presented to kindergartners and fourth graders, who are known to differ in their preferential mode of control engagement. Flexibility adaptation was examined through the modulation of switching costs by switch proportion, the so-called list-wide switch proportion (LWSP) effect. When the situation forced the use of reactive control (Experiment 1: simultaneous presentation of the cue and the stimulus), we found the LWSP effect with a greater magnitude in kindergartners than in fourth graders. In the situation inducing proactive control (Experiment 2: task cue presented before and until the stimulus), flexibility adaptation was obtained when error rates were considered but not response times. By demonstrating that even young children are capable of flexibility adaptation to contextual demands, these findings support the hypothesis that implicitly triggered adaptation of control may develop as early as the end of the preschool years despite the immaturity of cognitive control during this period.