2025/01/01 by Yu‐Chin Chiu, Corey Nack · 1 voice
Computer Science · #Neural Networks and Reservoir Computing
paper · pdf · doi:10.1525/collabra.130894
openalex publication_date 2025/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/26
Cognitive flexibility involves switching between tasks, while cognitive stability involves maintaining focus on a task and resisting distractions. Traditionally, these constructs are seen as endpoints on a spectrum with a trade-off: improvements in one lead to reductions in the other. However, empirical evidence of this trade-off has been sporadic, especially in studies that measure each construct separately. To address this, we employed a cued task-switching paradigm where successful performance requires flexible switching between rules while also maintaining focus on the relevant rule and ignoring the irrelevant one, allowing us to measure both flexibility and stability separately. That is, our operationalization of flexibility involved measuring changes in switch costs as a function of task demands, while our operationalization of stability involved measuring changes in task-rule congruency effects as a function of task demands. In two experiments, we tested whether our manipulation successfully shifted flexibility and induced a stability trade-off in the ‘flexibility’ group. Similarly, we examined the reverse scenario in the “stability” group, aiming to observe a pattern of results akin to a between-subjects double dissociation. In Experiment 1, we observed flexibility successfully shifted without affecting stability, and similarly, in Experiment 2, stability was shifted without impacting flexibility. However, a consistent trade-off was observed at the trial level in both experiments. In summary, our results offer some evidence for the independence of flexibility and stability at the list level but little evidence for the trade-off within individuals. This challenges the prevailing notion of the flexibility-stability trade-off as a “given” structural requirement within the human cognitive system.