Developing an Easy-to-Administer,Objective,and Valid Assessment of Cognitive Flexibility

Abstract

Cognitive flexibility, the ability to abandon an active cognitive strategy in favor of another, may predict successful performance in tasks that require divided attention, but measuring cognitive flexibility is challenging. Here, two studies assessed cognitive flexibility using Grant and Berg’s (1948) Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST) and an easy-to-administer puzzle task under development. Three variables of flexibility in the WCST were hypothesized to predict puzzle performance. In Study 1, undergraduate students (n = 88) from California State University, Northridge completed both the WCST and the puzzle. Results indicated that only the variable ‘trials to complete first category’ reliably correlated with puzzle performance, therefore a revised puzzle was created. In Study 2, undergraduate students (n = 40) from the same university repeated the experiment, resulting in a stronger relationship between ‘trials to complete first category’ and the modified puzzle. The results suggest that cognitive flexibility can be measured using puzzles that require frequent strategy shifts like those reported here.