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An important aspect of executive functioning is the ability to flexibly switch between behavioral rules. This study explored how considering the multidimensionality of objects affects behavioral rule switching in 3-year-old children. In Study 1 (N = 40), children who participated in a brief game separating and aggregating an object's dimensions (i.e., color and shape) showed improved performance on the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS), a measure of behavioral rule switching, relative to controls. In Study 2 (N = 80) DCCS performance improved even when the initial practice involved a different dimension (pattern and shape). Thus, practice thinking about multidimensionality can affect 3-year-olds' DCCS performance and therefore may play an important role in the development of flexible thinking.

Executive functions (EFs) enable flexible thinking, something young children are notoriously bad at. For instance, in the dimensional change card sort (DCCS) task, 3-year-olds can sort cards by one dimension (shape), but continue to sort by this dimension when asked to switch (to color). This study tests a prediction of a Dynamic Neural Field (DNF) model that prior experience with the post-switch dimension can enhance 3-year-old’s performance in the DCCS task. In Experiment 1A, a matching game was used to pre-expose 3-year-olds (n=36) to color. This facilitated switching from sorting by shape to color. In Experiment 1B, 3-year-olds (n=18) were pre-exposed to shape. This did not facilitate switching from sorting by color to shape. The DNF model was used to provide a mechanistic explanation for this asymmetry.

Children often perseverate, repeating prior behaviors when inappropriate. This work tested the roles of verbal labels and stimulus novelty in such perseveration. Three-year-old children sorted cards by one rule and were then instructed to switch to a second rule. In a basic condition, cards had familiar shapes and colors and both rules were stated explicitly. In an uninformative-label condition, cards had familiar shapes and colors, but the first rule was not stated explicitly. In a novel-stimuli condition, both rules were stated explicitly but stimuli were novel on the first sorting dimension. More children switched to the second rule in the uninformative-label and novel-stimuli conditions than in the basic condition. Implications for theories of cognitive flexibility are discussed.

Children's ability to flexibly shift attention between different representational schemes was investigated using the dimensional change card sorting task. Across three experiments (N = 56 three-year-olds and N = 40 four-year-olds in ; N = 14 three-year-olds in ; and N = 14 three-year-olds in ) the role of perceptual information on children's cognitive flexibility was investigated by manipulating different aspects of the task materials between pre- and postswitch phases. Better performance was observed when either task-relevant (the color or shape of the images on the cards) or task-irrelevant information (the background color or shape of the actual cards) was changed, with this improvement occurring when the changes were salient enough to induce a stimulus novelty effect.

Four experiments examined the development of negative priming (NP) in 3-5-year-old children using as a measure of children's executive function (EF) the dimensional change card sort (DCCS) task. In the NP version of the DCCS, the values of the sorting dimension that is relevant during the preswitch phase are removed during the postswitch phase. The experiments showed that the NP effect observed in the DCCS decreased during the preschool years, and they clarified the circumstances in which NP occurs. Taken together, the findings suggest that the development of EF in early childhood consists in part in disinhibiting attention to information that has previously been suppressed.

Two studies investigated the parallel developmental progress in theory of mind and executive control, as exemplified by correlations between the Dimensional Change Card Sorting task (DCCS; Frye, Zelazo, & Palfai, 1995) and the false-belief task. Experiment 1 with sixty 3-year-old children confirmed earlier studies (e.g., Perner & Lang, 2002), suggesting that children's problem with the DCCS lies in the redescription of stimulus objects. Experiment 2 with forty-four 3- to 4-year-olds reinforced the correlational evidence for a developmental link by showing transfer of training: False-belief training improved DCCS performance, and DCCS training significantly increased children's performance on the false-belief task. Results are discussed in relation to 5 theories explaining the existing correlational evidence.