Cognitive Flexibility and Higher-Order Executive Function

Scope: Task-set reconfiguration (set shifting), rule updating, strategy selection, goal maintenance. Current inhabitants: goal maintenance, set shifting, strategy use.

Out of scope: Fluid intelligence (an individual-difference construct, not a process); working-memory updating (in Short-Term and Working Memory); “cognitive flexibility” as a capacity-level umbrella (dropped 2026-04-19; alias on hed_set_shifting).

hed_cognitive_flexibility dropped 2026-04-19 — broader construct (capacity-level) that fails the single-answer inclusion test; set shifting is its primary operationalization. References absorbed into hed_set_shifting; ‘Cognitive flexibility’ added as alias. :::

This category contains 3 processes.

Goal maintenance

Process ID: hed_goal_maintenance

Active holding of task goals, rules, or sub-goals in a form that biases ongoing processing.

Tasks

The following tasks engage this process:

Fundamental references

  • Miller & Cohen (2001) Annual Review of Neuroscience 24:167–202

Recent references

  • Kane & Engle (2003) JEP: General 132:47–70

Set shifting

Process ID: hed_set_shifting

Also known as: Cognitive flexibility — Broader construct encompassing set shifting, perspective-taking, and adaptive strategy use; dropped as separate process 2026-04-19 because it fails the single-answer inclusion test. Set shifting is the primary experimental operationalization.

Flexible reconfiguration of the task set in response to a change in task demands; the primary experimental operationalization of cognitive flexibility, measured by task-switching paradigms and the WCST.

Tasks

The following tasks engage this process:

Fundamental references

  • Monsell (2003) Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7:134–140

  • Diamond (2013) Annual Review of Psychology 64:135–168

Recent references

  • Kiesel, Steinhauser, Wendt, Falkenstein, Jost, Philipp & Koch (2010) Psychological Bulletin 136:849–874

  • Dajani & Uddin (2015) Trends in Neurosciences 38:571–578

Strategy use

Process ID: hed_strategy_use

Selection and implementation of a cognitive procedure chosen to improve performance on a task.

Tasks

The following tasks engage this process:

Fundamental references

  • Siegler (1987) JEP: General 116:250–264