Cognitive Flexibility from Childhood to Older Adulthood: A Lifespan Analysis of Task-Switching Components

Cognitive flexibility (CF) is an executive function that enables individuals to adjust their behavior and thought processes to changing task requirements. Despite its importance, evidence on its development across the lifespan remains limited. This cross-sectional study examined age-related changes in transient and sustained components of CF in 512 Argentinian participants aged 6 to 75 years. A task-switching paradigm was used to assess overall switching performance, specific switch costs (transient control processes), and two measures of sustained control (mixing cost and global switch cost). Age-related variations were analyzed using segmented regression with detailed age intervals (one-year intervals from ages 6–19 and five-year intervals thereafter), facilitating the identification of developmental inflection points. The results revealed distinct, non-linear developmental patterns across different CF components. The transient control process exhibited rapid improvement starting after at least 6 years, remained stable throughout much of adulthood, and experienced gradual decline in advanced age. Sustained control displayed divergent trajectories: mixing costs decreased until middle adulthood before increasing again, while global switch costs improved through adolescence but began to decline earlier in adulthood. Notably, none of these measures followed a symmetrical inverted U-shaped developmental curve. These findings suggest that CF components have distinct developmental timelines and varying susceptibility to age-related decline, supporting theoretical frameworks positing that executive functions operate with partial independence from one another. This research highlights the significance of conducting comprehensive lifespan analyses to enhance theories related to the development of executive functions.