Cognitive Flexibility

Introduction

Evelyne CLÉMENT

Paragraphe, CY Cergy Paris University, Gennevilliers, France

Over the past three decades, the study of the flexible nature of human cognition has been of growing interest to scientists and practitioners specializing in early childhood, neuropsychology and education. In many manifestations of human activity, an important issue is to understand the nature and development of cognitive flexibility and the processes and contexts that promote or inhibit its expression. This issue is crucial in the field of lifelong learning, and more particularly in the field of school learning.

As evidenced by the scientific literature in this field of research, and although different understandings of flexibility have been proposed – with some defining it as a general and universal process independent of the contexts in which it is expressed, others, on the contrary, as a skill that develops at the same time as other abilities, such as conceptual and language development – a broad consensus is emerging on the flexible nature of human cognition to adapt to novelty and unexpected events. In this sense, as a cornerstone of learning, cognitive flexibility allows us to adapt to a constantly changing environment, to discover solutions in new and/or unexpected situations, to transfer knowledge learned in one context to a new context, to select the relevant stimuli in the environment to achieve a goal, to switch our attention from one stimulus to another according to the constraints ...