Cognitive, Affective, and Feedback-Based Flexibility – Disentangling Shared and Different Aspects of Three Facets of Psychological Flexibility

Abstract

Cognitive flexibility-the ability to adjust one ́s behavior to changing environmental demands-is crucial for controlled behavior. However, the term 'cognitive flexibility' is used heterogeneously, and associations between cognitive flexibility and other facets of flexible behavior have only rarely been studied systematically. To resolve some of these conceptual uncertainties, we directly compared cognitive flexibility (cue-instructed switching between two affectively neutral tasks), affective flexibility (switching between a neutral and an affective task using emotional stimuli), and feedback-based flexibility (non-cued, feedback-dependent switching between two neutral tasks). Three experimental paradigms were established that share as many procedural features (in terms of stimuli and/or task rules) as possible and administered in a pre-registered study plan (N = 100). Correlation analyses revealed significant associations between the efficiency of cognitive and affective task switching (response time switch costs). Feedback-based flexibility (measured as mean number of errors after rule reversals) did not correlate with task switching efficiency in the other paradigms, but selectively with the effectiveness of affective switching (error rate costs when switching from neutral to emotion task). While preregistered confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) provided no clear evidence for a shared factor underlying the efficiency of switching in all three domains of flexibility, an exploratory CFA suggested commonalities regarding switching effectiveness (accuracy-based switch costs). We propose shared mechanisms controlling the efficiency of cue-dependent task switching across domains, while the relationship to feedback-based flexibility may depend on mechanisms controlling switching effectiveness. Our results call for a more stringent conceptual differentiation between different variants of psychological flexibility.

Neural correlates of affective task switching and asymmetric affective task switching costs

“…Internal consistencies of RT-based switch costs were consistently high (Koo and Li, 2016) with rSB = .93, 95% CI [.89, .96] in the gender task and rSB = .92, 95% CI [.88, .95] [856,913]). Moreover, a significant task x condition interaction, F(1,56) = 5.49, p = .02, indicates higher switch costs in the emotion (mean = 228.61 ± 117.26ms; range 42.96 -798.43; t(81) = -14.22, p < .001) than in the gender task (195.69 ± 125.39ms; range 37.38 -686.57; t(81) = -12.17, p < .001), V = 1177, p = .005 (consistent with Kraft et al, 2020;Eckart et al, 2021 [.78, .89] in the STAI's state score. When included in the repeated measures ANOVAs, none of the scales had a significant effect on affective task-switching behavior (all p ³ .65).…”

“…At the behavioral level, we replicated a previously reported asymmetry of switch costs with higher switch costs when switching to the emotion as compared to switching to the gender task (Reeck and Egner, 2015;Kraft et al, 2020;Eckart et al, 2021). In cognitive (i.e., nonaffective) task switching, higher switch costs in one of the competing task-sets have been interpreted as being indicative of differences in task-set dominance, with pro-longed switch costs when switching to the dominant task (Monsell et al, 2000).…”

“…More fine-grained analyses indicate that the efficiency of task switching varies depending on the affective nature of the task. Specifically, RT switch costs are prolonged when switching away from an affectively neutral task and towards the more salient affective task (Reeck and Egner, 2015;Kraft et al, 2020;Eckart et al, 2021). This imbalance appears consistent with the finding of asymmetric switch costs between more and less dominant tasks in other contexts, reflecting that more effort is required to release the dominant task from its greater backward inhibition (Monsell et al, 2000).…”

“…Pictures of 60 males and 60 females with either happy or angry facial expression were presented, and participants were asked to either perform a gender judgement (female vs. male; neutral task) or an emotion judgement (positive vs. negative emotional expression), depending on the location of the image (above or below a central fixation cross; see Kraft et al, 2020, for further details on stimuli and procedures). Assignment of task rules to response hands and rule-to-position mapping (above vs. below fixation) was counterbalanced across subjects.…”

Desarrollo y validación del Cuestionario de Funciones Ejecutivas en niños de 9 a 12 años

“…Varios reactivos del cufe reflejan un contenido emocional (e.g., "Cuando está enojado o molesto le lleva mucho tiempo calmarse"), lo que podría explicar el agrupamiento en un mismo factor de los ítems de flexibilidad cognitiva y flexibilidad afectiva. Sin bien algunos estudios indican que ambos tipos de flexibilidad son relativamente independientes (Mărcuș et al, 2020), otros encuentran asociación y mecanismos comunes (Kraft et al, 2020). Por ejemplo, un niño que está enganchado (comportamental y afectivamente) en una tarea, puede manifestar rigidez cognitiva (seguir enganchado a la tarea anterior) y afectiva (irritabilidad, llanto, malestar) frente al cambio de tarea.…”