1. Effects of rule uncertainty on cognitive flexibility in a card-sorting paradigm
- Author
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Caroline Seer, Florian Lange, Dorothea Müller, Bruno Kopp, Tabea Klein, and Ahlke Kip
- Subjects
DISORDER ,Male ,Task switching ,SET SELECTION ,Experimental psychology ,Computer science ,Social Sciences ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,CHILDREN ,Neuropsychological Tests ,Cognitive flexibility ,050105 experimental psychology ,03 medical and health sciences ,Executive Function ,Young Adult ,0302 clinical medicine ,Cognition ,Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous) ,Wisconsin Card Sorting Test ,ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE ,Developmental and Educational Psychology ,Psychology ,FRONTAL-LOBE ,Humans ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,METAANALYSIS ,Psychology, Experimental ,05 social sciences ,EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS ,Uncertainty ,Contrast (statistics) ,General Medicine ,PERFORMANCE ,Executive functions ,Card sorting ,TASK-SWITCHING PARADIGM ,Cognitive control ,Female ,Executive functioning ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,TRANSITION ,Psychomotor Performance ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
Cognitive flexibility has been studied in two separate research traditions. Neuropsychologists typically rely on rather complex assessment tools such as the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). In contrast, task-switching paradigms are used in experimental psychology to obtain more specific measures of cognitive flexibility. We aim to contribute to the integration of these research traditions by examining the role of the key factor that differs between the WCST and experimental task-switching paradigms: rule uncertainty. In two experimental studies, we manipulated the degree of rule uncertainty after rule switches in a computerized version of the WCST. Across a variety of task parameters, reducing rule uncertainty consistently impaired the speed and accuracy of responses when the rule designated to be more likely turned out to be incorrect. Other performance measures such as the number of perseverative errors were not significantly affected by rule uncertainty. We conclude that a fine-grained analysis of WCST performance can dissociate behavioural indicators that are affected vs. unaffected by rule uncertainty. By this means, it is possible to integrate WCST results and findings obtained from task-switching paradigms that do not involve rule uncertainty. ispartof: ACTA PSYCHOLOGICA vol:190 pages:53-64 ispartof: location:Netherlands status: published
- Published
- 2018