Department of Psychology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario K1S 5B6, Canada.
Department of Psychology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario K1S 5B6, Canada; Department of Cognitive Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario K1S 5B6, Canada.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2022 Aug;220:105418. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105418. Epub 2022 Apr 1.
Cognitive flexibility, the ability to think of something in more than one way, has been studied in preschoolers from two different approaches. Within executive function research, most studies operationalize cognitive flexibility using sequential tasks in which children must think of a specific stimulus first in one way and then in another way (switching cognitive flexibility). In contrast, Piagetian multiplicative classification tasks also require cognitive flexibility by asking children to consider multiple dimensions of a single stimulus at the same time. Piagetian tasks are typically inductive and require abstraction skills. Although research with Piagetian tasks suggests that children are unable to consider multiple dimensions simultaneously until they reach the concrete operational stage, there is some evidence that preschoolers can coordinate two dimensions simultaneously in deductive tasks. In this study, we examined a deductive version of a matrix completion task in which preschoolers (N = 102) were asked to consider two dimensions of a given stimulus simultaneously. We show that 4- and 5-year-olds can succeed on this task and compare children's performance on the matrix completion task with their performance on a widely used switching cognitive flexibility task, the Dimensional Change Card Sort. We discuss the implications of relating the two aspects of cognitive flexibility development.
认知灵活性，即从不止一种方式思考事物的能力，已经从两种不同的方法在学龄前儿童中进行了研究。在执行功能研究中，大多数研究使用顺序任务来操作认知灵活性，在这些任务中，儿童必须首先以一种方式思考特定的刺激，然后再以另一种方式思考（转换认知灵活性）。相比之下，皮亚杰乘法分类任务也要求认知灵活性，要求儿童同时考虑单一刺激的多个维度。皮亚杰任务通常是归纳式的，需要抽象技能。尽管皮亚杰任务的研究表明，儿童在达到具体运算阶段之前无法同时考虑多个维度，但有一些证据表明，学龄前儿童可以在演绎任务中同时协调两个维度。在这项研究中，我们研究了矩阵完成任务的演绎版本，要求学龄前儿童（N=102）同时考虑给定刺激的两个维度。我们表明，4 岁和 5 岁的儿童可以成功完成这项任务，并比较儿童在矩阵完成任务上的表现与他们在广泛使用的转换认知灵活性任务（维度变化卡片分类）上的表现。我们讨论了将认知灵活性发展的两个方面联系起来的意义。
