Title: Strategic Flexibility and Age-Related Cognitive Change
Description: This series of projects aims to explore the potential role of strategic flexibility in cognitive aging, and whether this construct can serve as an effective mechanistic proxy for cognitive reserve. Study 1 introduces the task designed for this series, based on stimuli from a classic test of fluid reasoning and formatted as a task-switching paradigm to explore strategic characteristics in a structured way. This study suggests that such a task is subject to age-related effects. Study 2 introduces a redesigned version of this task, matching it more closely to existing paradigms of task-switching, and explores how covariates interact with measured performance. Study 3 draws upon an existing sample of extensive neuropsychological and neuroimaging data, and aims to describe the associations among this set of data and measures of strategic flexibility. Results overall indicate that age negatively affects strategic flexibility, but cognitive reserve may mitigate this impairment.