Late life onset dementias, including Parkinson disease and Alzheimer disease, are also marked by rigidity and cognitive inflexibility. The extent to which common and distinct neural mechanisms underlie the variety of flexibility deficits observed across the lifespan in these conditions will be explored in this section Table 1.

ASD and ADHD are two prevalent, heterogeneous neurodevelopmental disorders typically diagnosed in the first 5 years of life. In children with ASD or ADHD, executive function and flexibility deficits are often observed in laboratory settings and in day-to-day activities 64 , Although children with ASD, ADHD or co-morbid ASD and ADHD may all exhibit flexibility deficits, the nature and severity of these issues can differ across and even within these disorders.

Early work in developmental psychopathology 66 and recent meta-analyses confirm broad executive dysfunction in ASD across domains 67 as well as more specific impairments in flexibility, typically assessed with the WCST 64 , Restricted and repetitive behaviours RRBs , considered core deficits in ASD, can include stereotyped movements, insistence on sameness, and circumscribed or perseverative interests The severity of RRBs is associated with measures of cognitive inflexibility in ASD Studies of the neural circuitry underlying RRBs transdiagostically point to a critical role for frontostriatal systems in mediating these behaviours A recent review of neural mechanisms underlying cognitive and behavioural flexibility in autism additionally points to atypical patterns of L-FPN and M-CIN activation in response to task switching and set-shifting While ASD is characterized by difficulty in flexibly adapting to changes in routines, children with ADHD have difficulty with attentional focus and exhibit high levels of variability in moment-to-moment behaviours Diagnostic criteria for ADHD include inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity 69 , which can be thought of as manifestations of distractibility or too much flexibility.

Some reports claim that executive dysfunction is more pervasive and more severe in ADHD than in ASD 75 , yet studies targeting flexibility document that children with ASD perform poorer on the WCST than do children with ADHD Age-related improvements in executive function are more clearly observed in ASD than in ADHD Even though not all children with a primary diagnosis of ASD exhibit executive dysfunction 78 , the vast majority of children with co-morbid ASD and ADHD do exhibit executive function impairments Only a handful of neuroimaging studies have examined ASD and ADHD together.

One found evidence for shared and distinct patterns of intrinsic functional connectivity centrality in children with these disorders Another reported no evidence for group differences in functional network connectivity across diagnostic groups Although it is hypothesized that the common behavioural manifestations of cognitive inflexibility across ASD and ADHD should be reflected in shared neural substrates, few assessments of brain circuitry supporting flexibility across these disorders have been conducted.

Data-driven techniques are now being used to identify key dimensions of functioning that overlap across diagnostic categories and also present heterogeneously within diagnostic categories For example, transdiagnostic executive function subtypes have been identified with use of community detection algorithms, and children within the subtype characterized by inflexibility showed a failure to modulate parietal lobe activation in response to increasing executive task demands Other work examining ASD, ADHD and co-morbid ASD and ADHD using latent profile analysis also provides evidence for transdiagnostic executive function classes Further work is needed to understand the brain activation patterns and dynamics underlying reduced or heightened flexibility in these neurodevelopmental disorders, as well as the paradoxical combinations for example, inflexibility alongside distractibility that can sometimes be observed.

This work might focus on how dynamics within specific brain networks might support different domains of executive function. For example, intrinsic dynamics of the M-CIN but not the L-FPN have been shown to relate to individual differences in distractibility in neurotypical adults Measurement issues complicate the assessment of flexibility deficits and their neural bases in ASD and ADHD, as different combinations of laboratory-based measures, neuropsychological tests and informant-report questionnaires have been used across studies It is important to note that well-documented inflexible everyday behaviours in ASD are not necessarily directly related to cognitive flexibility deficits assessed experimentally Still, these types of nuanced measure of flexibility are not yet routinely used in transdiagnostic assessment settings, leaving several open questions as to the specific profile of executive function and flexibility deficits that characterize neurodevelopmental disorders.

Adolescence is a critical developmental period marked by dramatic physical, social and emotional changes that require cognitive flexibility for successful navigation.

Adolescence also coincides with a period of vulnerability and risk of the onset of psychopathologies, including anxiety, depression, OCD and schizophrenia. Brain circuitry supporting cognitive control is still undergoing development during adolescence 87 , in part owing to differential development of limbic and executive control systems These asymmetries are evident in studies demonstrating that adolescents learn faster from negative reward prediction errors than adults, and recruit the right AI to a greater degree during probabilistic reversal learning Signs of mood disorders, including anxiety and depression, can develop during the adolescent years.

Pathological anxiety involves excessive worry or the tendency to dwell on difficulties and perceive future problems as more likely than they are in reality, whereas depression involves rumination or passively focusing on distressing thoughts in response to sad mood and experiences Worry and rumination may reflect the same underlying construct of repetitive negative thinking, which is likely a product of inflexible thinking and difficulty engaging the L-FPN executive control systems in the service of emotion regulation Another adolescent-onset disorder characterized by severe flexibility impairments is OCD.

Flexibility deficits in OCD manifest themselves as maladaptive patterns of recurrent and persistent thoughts, urges and impulses that are intrusive, as well as compulsions, including repetitive behaviours that an individual feels driven to perform Neuroimaging investigations across OCD and ASD provide evidence that increased functional connectivity within frontostriatal circuitry relates to more severe symptoms of repetitive behaviour In OCD, reduced activation of the OFC and frontostriatal regions during cognitive flexibility task performance is regularly reported 92 , Schizophrenia is another condition emerging during late adolescence that is associated with reduced cognitive flexibility, often accompanied by frontal lobe hypometabolism Individuals with schizophrenia perform worse than individuals with OCD on the WCST, suggesting the involvement of different subsystems within basal—corticofrontal circuits in these two disorders Just as in the general population, frontostriatal circuitry appears to be linked with variability of cognitive flexibility performance in schizophrenia While executive function and flexibility deficits are observed in normal ageing, these issues can be further exacerbated in neurological disorders that affect later life.

Older adults exhibit reduced efficiency of lateral prefrontal control regions, and compensate for age-related declines in task-switching performance by relying on enhanced frontotemporal connectivity compared with younger adults The default—executive coupling hypothesis of ageing proposes that declining performance on executive control tasks and reduced flexibility in older adulthood are underpinned by inflexible coupling of the M-FPN and lateral prefrontal regions A recent meta-analysis of fMRI studies of executive function in ageing reveals that the IFJ is recruited to a different degree in younger versus older adults.

Furthermore, decreased functional connectivity between the IFJ and other executive function-related brain regions is observed with increasing age Whole-brain computational models permit quantification of metastability and recalibration processes underlying changes in cognitive performance over the lifespan.

Such models can help clarify how dedifferentiation observed at the network level, such as that proposed by the default—executive coupling hypothesis of ageing, can be seen as compensation for the decline of structural integrity in the ageing brain One of the signs of dementia is heightened executive function impairment compared with that from normal ageing, including a deterioration of mental flexibility and the onset of cognitive rigidity.

A burgeoning functional neuroimaging literature including task-switching and set-shifting tasks adapted from neuropsychological assessments most notably the WCST investigates cognitive flexibility deficits in ageing and dementia, confirming the critical role of PFC recruitment in maintaining these functions Flexibility deficits observed in Parkinson disease may result from dysfunction of frontostriatal loops resulting from dopamine depletion Across neurological disorders, different aspects of cognitive flexibility may be impaired.

For example, frontoparietal changes affecting set-shifting ability characterize patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, whereas frontostriatal changes affecting rule inference are seen in primary dystonia and Parkinson disease Dysexecuitve syndrome, which involves impairment of working memory, cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control, is seen in progressive dementia syndrome due to Alzheimer disease.

This syndrome is accompanied by frontoparietal hypometabolism as demonstrated by positron emission tomography Taken together, the literature on flexibility in ageing and dementia points to frontoparietal and frontostriatal dysfunction, as might be predicted from the human and animal research.

While we focus on maladaptive outcomes associated with flexibility deficits here, flexibility reductions can also be associated with adaptive or healthy traits, and the level of flexibility required can fluctuate depending on the context.

Therefore, alterations in flexibility might in some cases represent normative adaptations to the perceived characteristics of the environment. In Parkinson disease, cognitive impairments such as slowed thinking and cognitive inflexibility parallel motor impairments , suggesting that reduced flexibility might be an appropriate reaction to a world that is experienced as more stationary.

Cognitive stability — the opposite of cognitive flexibility — can likewise be beneficial during tasks requiring focused attention and distractor inhibition Thus, reduced flexibility may paradoxically be optimal under specific conditions.

Animal studies have revealed how specific neurotransmitter systems underlie flexible cognition and behaviour. In humans, cognitive training paradigms and physical activity have been touted as means to bolster flexibility, and there is some initial evidence from studies of development and ageing that bilingualism may confer greater flexibility.

This section will summarize what is known regarding the pharmacology of cognitive and behavioural flexibility, then critically review the research on cognitive flexibility enhancement and training. Serotonin and striatal dopamine neurotransmitter systems have a modulatory role in reversal learning, as evidenced by human and animal lesion, stimulation and neuroimaging studies In humans, transient cerebral serotonin depletion affects processing of negative feedback during reversal learning l -DOPA withdrawal studies demonstrate that patients with Parkinson disease not receiving medication show inflexibility in the form of increased switch costs when switching between tasks Methylphenidate, a psychostimulant influencing dopamine and noradrenaline activity, has long been used to treat ADHD and other developmental disorders There is some evidence from studies of rhesus monkeys given therapeutic doses of methylphenidate that the drug can impair task-switching performance.

This indicates that the improved ability to focus attention may come at the expense of hindering flexibility Taken together, these findings suggest that serotonergic and dopaminergic signalling are critically involved in flexible cognition and behaviour.

The striatal cholinergic systems also appear to play a role in behavioural flexibility. Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy studies in humans during reversal learning show that lower levels of choline in the dorsal striatum are associated with a lower number of perseverative trials Studies of the contributions of the cholinergic system to flexibility are complicated, however, by the fact that many cholinergic neurons co-release glutamate or GABA along with acetylcholine Computerized cognitive training, physical activity and specialized curricula have been described as potential interventions to improve flexibility in children, yet the evidence supporting the efficacy of these interventions is mixed.

Successful programmes involve repeated practice and progressive increases in challenge to executive functions, and children who are more impaired initially benefit the most from cognitive training and physical activity interventions 2. Generally, training in a specific aspect of executive function can produce short-term narrow transfer, but does not generalize to other aspects of executive function.

For example, working memory training can improve working memory performance, but not inhibitory processing or other skills Implementing a game-based flexibility training designed to increase motivation in children, one study found long-term transfer effects in untrained executive control tasks.

The study authors also reported greater performance improvements in the game-based flexibility training group on reading comprehension, an effect that appeared only at the 6-week follow up. These findings suggest that the addition of game elements to executive control training tasks may result in enhanced complexity that facilitates transfer to academic abilities Flexibility training in neurodevelopmental disorders has also produced mixed results.

One computerized working memory and cognitive flexibility training designed for children with ASD did not result in differential improvement in a randomized controlled trial An executive function intervention known as Unstuck and On Target aims to address insistence on sameness, flexibility, goal setting and planning using a cognitive behavioural programme.

This intervention has been shown to be effective for improving classroom behaviour, flexibility and problem-solving in children with ASD Cognitive training has been used to combat age-related cognitive decline, and training-induced structural and functional brain changes in healthy older adults 60 years of age and older have been demonstrated Studies examining the effects of aerobic exercise or resistance training interventions without a cognitive component seem to suggest little or no executive function benefit, although exercise that is cognitively challenging, such as martial arts, can produce measurable benefits In adults of around 60 years of age and older, aerobic exercise interventions may contribute to salutary effects on cognition through prevention of volumetric decreases of hippocampal volume over time The small effects reported in studies of physical activity interventions on executive function stand in contrast to the fact that children with greater cardiovascular fitness perform better on executive function components, including information processing and control, visuospatial working memory and attention efficiency Likewise, individuals who are generally more physically active have better executive function than those who are more sedentary Evidence supporting the bilingual advantage identifies inhibition and monitoring as potential mechanisms conferring enhanced executive control in individuals with diverse language experiences Lifelong experience of managing and resolving competition between languages imposes demands that require brain regions not typically used for language processing This bilingual experience reorganizes brain networks to create more effective mechanisms for executive control and results in cognitive benefits when non-linguistic processing draws on the same executive control networks As language switching involves the same frontal systems involved in executive control and inhibitory processes, it is thought that the bilingual experience results in general enhancement of these brain systems , Current research in bilingualism has produced mixed results, and there is no consensus regarding the relationship between bilingualism and cognitive advantages in the executive function domain.

Some researchers report cognitive benefits in bilingual individuals , while others fail to replicate these findings in typically developing children and adults However, the bilingual advantage has been observed in children of lower socio-economic status , The observation that bilingual experience helps offset age-related losses in executive processes has led to the proposal that bilingualism may act as a neuroprotective factor against dementia by buffering against the decline in cognitive control abilities typically observed in later life , Thus, the bilingual advantage may manifest itself under specific circumstances, but further research is needed on this topic.

The global COVID pandemic highlighted the critical need for optimal levels of flexibility at the level of institutions and individuals. Neuroscience research has probed flexibility using paradigms that are capable of spanning both human and animal investigations.

This research has demonstrated that cognitive and behavioural flexibility involve executive control processes that rely on the coordinated functioning among several large-scale frontoparietal and frontostriatal brain networks enacting salience detection, attention, inhibition, working memory and switching processes Understanding the typical development of these networks, their stabilization in adulthood and their potential for breakdown with ageing is the first step towards pinpointing effective strategies for addressing flexibility deficits in psychiatric and neurological disorders and enhancing flexibility across the lifespan.

For example, the identification of unique brain profiles supporting various degrees of flexibility across clinical and neurotypical populations could aid in identifying interventions with the highest probability of success for a particular individual.

Capturing mechanistic insights with the aid of neuroimaging will help to improve our current diagnostic nosology and move us towards achieving the goals of precision medicine. Future directions include addressing issues of measurement to maximize ecological and construct validity in research on flexibility.

It is important to acknowledge that highly reliable self-report or informant-report measures may better predict individual differences in real-life outcomes, whereas laboratory performance-based measures that are sensitive to within-person experimental manipulations can reveal processes underlying task performance Standardized, transdiagnostic assessments that are normed for targeted age ranges must be developed and universally adopted to permit characterization of common and unique aspects of flexibility that are affected across clinical conditions.

Several self-report scales have been developed for use in adults, including the Cognitive Control and Flexibility Questionnaire , the Cognitive Flexibility Scale and the Psychological Flexibility Questionnaire Consistent use of questionnaires in future studies will provide a clearer picture of the clinical profile of flexibility deficits.

Going forward, the challenge of how to bridge laboratory-based, objective behavioural measures of flexibility with real-world indices of flexible behaviour must be tackled.

Translational neuroscience research adopting the RDoC framework will likely continue to build on findings that interactions among the M-CIN, L-FPN and M-FPN are implicated as common neurobiological substrates for mental illness 28 , The emerging field of computational psychiatry that strives to use data-driven approaches and machine-learning to improve disease classification and predict treatment outcomes will benefit by focusing on transdiagnostic constructs such as flexibility, with clear links to real-life outcomes.

The success of these clinically oriented endeavours, however, hinges on progress in neuroinformatics efforts to construct biologically informed taxonomies of psychological processes At present, there have been no interventional studies demonstrating the role of changing brain network dynamics in supporting successful training of flexibility.

Following similar work providing evidence for dynamic reconfiguration of brain networks with working memory training , future research should focus efforts towards delineating how effective cognitive and behavioural flexibility training alters brain dynamics.

Studies of cognitive training generally provide limited support for far transfer of skills. Similarly, while the cumulative effects of exercise are clearly beneficial for the brain and cognition, more research is needed to determine the type and dosage of physical activity intervention that is most suited to enhance executive function and flexibility.

The bolstering of flexibility that may be conferred by bilingualism provides an added incentive to promote the learning of multiple languages from a young age. The next frontier of flexibility research will likely involve collaborations among clinical psychologists, medical professionals, neuroscientists, engineers, computer scientists and educators.

Moradian, N. et al. The urgent need for integrated science to fight COVID pandemic and beyond. Transl Med. Article CAS PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar. Diamond, A. Interventions shown to aid executive function development in children 4 to 12 years old.

Science , — Burt, K. Resilience in the transition to adulthood. Article PubMed Google Scholar. Burke, S. What are the later life contributions to reserve, resilience, and compensation? Aging 83 , — Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar.

Scott, W. Cognitive complexity and cognitive flexibility. Sociometry 25 , — Article Google Scholar. Brown, V. Behavioral flexibility: attentional shifting, rule switching, and response reversal.

Miyake, A. Article CAS PubMed Google Scholar. Poldrack, R. The cognitive atlas: toward a knowledge foundation for cognitive neuroscience. Teuber, H. Unity and diversity of frontal lobe functions. Acta Neurobiol.

CAS Google Scholar. Badre, D. Opening the gate to working memory. Natl Acad. USA , — Chatham, C. Multiple gates on working memory. Ott, T. Dopamine and cognitive control in prefrontal cortex. Trends Cogn. Banich, M. Executive function: the search for an integrated account. Butter, C. Perseveration in extinction and in discrimination reversal tasks following selective frontal ablations in Macaca mulatta.

Izquierdo, A. The neural basis of reversal learning: an updated perspective. Neuroscience , 12—26 Insel, T. The NIMH research domain criteria RDoC project: precision medicine for psychiatry. Psychiatry , — Saggar, M. Pushing the boundaries of psychiatric neuroimaging to ground diagnosis in biology.

National Institute of Mental Health. National Advisory Mental Health Council Workgroup on Tasks and Measures for Research Domain Criteria. Behavioral assessment methods for RDoC constructs NIH, Cepeda, N. Changes in executive control across the life span: examination of task-switching performance.

Dajani, D. Demystifying cognitive flexibility: Implications for clinical and developmental neuroscience. Trends Neurosci. Dang, J. Why are self-report and behavioral measures weakly correlated? Isquith, P. Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function—Adult Version BRIEF-A Interpretive Report Psychological Assessment Resources, Gioia, G.

Behavior rating inventory of executive function. Zelazo, P. The Dimensional Change Card Sort DCCS : a method of assessing executive function in children. Delis, D. Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System American Psychological Association, Brooks, B.

NEPSY-II: a developmental neuropsychological assessment, second edition. Cambridge Cognition. Intra-Extra Dimensional Set Shift IED. Uddin, L. Salience processing and insular cortical function and dysfunction.

Yarkoni, T. Large-scale automated synthesis of human functional neuroimaging data. Methods 8 , — Seeley, W. Dissociable intrinsic connectivity networks for salience processing and executive control.

Towards a universal taxonomy of macro-scale functional human brain networks. Brain Topogr. Derrfuss, J. Involvement of the inferior frontal junction in cognitive control: meta-analyses of switching and Stroop studies.

Brain Mapp. Measuring cognitive flexibility with the flexible item selection task: from MRI adaptation to individual connectome mapping. This functional neuroimaging study in humans demonstrates that flexible item selection directly engages the left IFJ, which influences activity in other cortical and subcortical brain regions supporting cognitive flexibility.

Kim, C. Common and distinct mechanisms of cognitive flexibility in prefrontal cortex. Sundermann, B. Functional connectivity profile of the human inferior frontal junction: involvement in a cognitive control network.

BMC Neurosci. Robbins, T. Shifting and stopping: fronto-striatal substrates, neurochemical modulation and clinical implications. B Biol. Banerjee, A. Value-guided remapping of sensory cortex by lateral orbitofrontal cortex.

Nature , — Ragozzino, M. The contribution of the medial prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, and dorsomedial striatum to behavioral flexibility.

NY Acad. This review summarizes work in rodents delineating limbic, orbitofrontal and striatal contributions to behavioural flexibility. Hampshire, A. Fractionating attentional control using event-related fMRI. Cortex 16 , — Ghahremani, D.

Neural components underlying behavioral flexibility in human reversal learning. Cortex 20 , — This functional neuroimaging study reveals how human reversal learning and guidance of actions consistent with current reward contingencies engages the lateral OFC, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and right inferior frontal cortex.

Chang, C. Time—frequency dynamics of resting-state brain connectivity measured with fMRI. Neuroimage 50 , 81—98 Hutchison, R. Dynamic functional connectivity: promise, issues, and interpretations. Neuroimage 80 , — Calhoun, V.

The chronnectome: time-varying connectivity networks as the next frontier in fMRI data discovery. Neuron 84 , — Nomi, J. Chronnectomic patterns and neural flexibility underlie executive function.

Neuroimage , — This dynamic functional connectivity analysis demonstrates that individuals with the propensity to exhibit whole-brain dynamics characterized by attenuated correlations between brain regions and greater functional connectivity variability perform better on the WCST, a test of cognitive flexibility.

Chen, T. Distinct global brain dynamics and spatiotemporal organization of the salience network. PLoS Biol. Article PubMed PubMed Central CAS Google Scholar. Douw, L. State-dependent variability of dynamic functional connectivity between frontoparietal and default networks relates to cognitive flexibility.

Neuroscience , 12—21 Vidaurre, D. Brain network dynamics are hierarchically organized in time. Medaglia, J. Functional alignment with anatomical networks is associated with cognitive flexibility.

This multimodal neuroimaging study demonstrates how alignment between functional activation and underlying white matter networks is associated with greater cognitive flexibility across individuals. Cohen, J. The behavioral and cognitive relevance of time-varying, dynamic changes in functional connectivity.

Yin, W. The emergence of a functionally flexible brain during early infancy. Cabral, J. Cognitive performance in healthy older adults relates to spontaneous switching between states of functional connectivity during rest. Ezaki, T. Age-related changes in the ease of dynamical transitions in human brain activity.

Yin, D. Dissociable changes of frontal and parietal cortices in inherent functional flexibility across the human life span. Allegra, M. Brain network dynamics during spontaneous strategy shifts and incremental task optimization. NeuroImage , Towards a new approach to reveal dynamical organization of the brain using topological data analysis.

Bring the noise: reconceptualizing spontaneous neural activity. McIntosh, A. Increased brain signal variability accompanies lower behavioral variability in development. PLoS Comput. Garrett, D. The modulation of BOLD variability between cognitive states varies by age and processing speed.

Cortex 23 , — This study illustrates how variability of fMRI signals differs in normal ageing, and specifically highlights the fact that older and slower-performing individuals exhibit reduced variability. Blood oxygen level-dependent signal variability is more than just noise. Moment-to-moment BOLD Signal variability reflects regional changes in neural flexibility across the lifespan.

Armbruster-Genç, D. Brain signal variability differentially affects cognitive flexibility and cognitive stability. Higher performers upregulate brain signal variability in response to more feature-rich visual input.

Achieving a professional state of Zen — interview with Kabeer Naqvi FCCA Make connections, power your future Improve your cognitive flexibility Student success story: Happiness Watimanywa How valuable are human emotions in a digital age?

How will digital shape your future? Inspiring success - interview with Angela Dong FCCA Student success story: Kamaru Aminat Omotolani Are you ready for the fourth industrial revolution? Successful career planning - marathon or sprint?

Could your passions also be opportunities? Five things parents may want to know about ACCA Can you meditate your way to success? Should you be scared of psychometric testing?

Future-proof your career Top three tips to being your own boss Five steps to being your own career coach Top tips for aspiring accountants Apprenticeship or internship?

Mindful leadership Social currency: branding yourself in the finance and business industry What do you do on a big four internship? Six tips for starting your own business Be the boss of your to-do list How to get hired: your must-have skills for accounting and finance Six exam apps that will help you study smarter not harder In demand: tech-savvy accountants How to impress the Big Four Steps to becoming a CFO How humans invented this thing called accounting 15 essential exam and study strategies 15 essential exam and study strategies.

Improve your cognitive flexibility Share this:. So, how do you react to change? Catherine Smith, behaviour change expert at professional coaching consultancy Equal Talent, suggests you consider these circumstances: Do you grab unpredictable moments positively and resourcefully or do they derail you?

Can you cope with and manage lots of balls in the air? When responding to the unexpected, are you able to adjust your thinking and your behaviour or is your response linear and rigid? How can you get better at it?

Adapt, pivot, innovate. These traits are often associated with great leaders, entrepreneurs, and inventors—not bumblebees, rats, ravens, rhesus macaques, and chimpanzees to name just a few.

There is a common thread that ties them all together, however, and it is called cognitive flexibility. Despite this similarity, there is one major difference. A greater proportion of individuals within those species appear to have an abundance of cognitive flexibility compared to humans.

Before exploring what we can do about it, let me first explain what cognitive flexibility is, describe how other species demonstrate this behavior, and discuss why exhibiting this behavior is advantageous. Broadly speaking, cognitive flexibility is about moving between different tasks simultaneously, applying concepts from one context toward solving a problem in another unrelated or new situation.

This ability is generally considered part of the executive function of the brain. How do we know that other species have it and demonstrate it to a higher degree?

We can turn to a recent study by Watzek et al. They designed a simple, yet elegant, project designed to compare the levels of cognitive complacency laziness of capuchin monkeys and rhesus monkeys with that of humans. Before describing the results, I should warn you that capuchin monkeys are true innovators.

They are notorious for generating novel solutions, behaviors, and cultural practices. Some, such as poking each other in the eye as a test of faith and potentially friendship , are perhaps less than spectacular, but nevertheless, avant-garde.

In the Watzek et al. After learning this sequence, they were presented with an alternative and significantly more efficient strategy. Immediately, 70 percent of the nonhuman primates of both species selected the new approach, compared to only 1 human, or a measly 1.

Eventually we humans caught on, right? Rather than catching up with our primate cousins, where percent of the individuals integrated the new and more resourceful tactic, 61 percent of humans never used the shortcut. Not even after they watched another human do it in a video! What does this mean?

It means that most humans are pretty bad at optimal decision-making. It seems that once we learn something one way, we stick with it even if there is a faster, better, more effective approach. In short, we are incredibly biased. Here's the big deal.

Having greater cognitive flexibility confers a significant set of advantages, including being able to acquire and integrate new information rapidly, solve problems more creatively, quickly adjust responses to changing conditions, and inhibit automatic behavior.

All of these benefits allow those individuals to outperform others in a variety of circumstances social, academic, political, business, etc.

If being cognitively flexible is valuable and the majority of us are falling short in the adaptability department, is there anything we can do about it? Fortunately, we are not bound by our rigidity and bias , even though the developmental trajectory is somewhat solidified by late childhood or early adolescence.

How do we know? Some of this good news comes from rats. In yet another fascinating study, Crawford et al. First, learning a new skill can be stressful.

Second, once rats learned the basics, they accepted more challenges, not fewer.