Cognitive Flexibility

3Metacognition and Flexibility: What are the Theoretical Links and What Links have been Observed?

Valérie PENNEQUIN

PAVeA, University of Tours, France

3.1. Introduction

A lot of research has been carried out on individuals and their control over their thoughts, emotions and actions. This literature addresses the notions of executive functions, metacognition and self-regulation. These concepts are used in different fields of research and their links and differences are not so clear.

In particular, this chapter will review the links between executive functions and metacognition, and more specifically, between mental flexibility and metacognition.

Self-regulation is a term that encompasses a set of heterogeneous cognitive and affective processes that allow individuals to constantly adjust their behavior to changing situations (Best and Miller 2010).

There are two main categories of research on self-regulation: research on executive functions, in the fields of cognitive psychology and neuropsychology; and research on self-regulated learning, which allows the individual to monitor and control their actions during the resolution of a task, that is, metacognition. Work on metacognition is more in the domain of developmental psychology and educational psychology.

Executive functions and metacognition are high-level processes. These processes are used in daily life and seem to have many common features. First, we will present these two notions separately before highlighting the common ...