认知灵活性是人类思维的重要特征，是适应环境、高效学习的基本前提。近年来，众多研究者将认知灵活性作为执行功能的主要成份开展了大量研究，发现认知灵活性成熟于青少年时期，认知灵活性高低与婴儿期的额叶脑电基线强度和少年期负责认知控制的脑网络连接强度相关。但认知灵活性在儿童期快速发展的神经机制却并不清楚，尚无准确评价个体认知灵活性高低的神经科学指标。为探索这些问题，本项目拟对认知灵活性的经典范式―威斯康星卡片分类测验（WCST）进行改进，克服已有范式分段测量导致结论不一致的问题，考察3–12岁儿童认知灵活性的发展规律，揭示认知灵活性快速发展的神经基础，探索认知灵活性的个体差异关联的脑电成分、脑网络连接模式。本项目研究成果可为进一步揭示智力发展及其神经基础提供新视角，为教育者制定差异化的教学方案提供理论指导，也可给脑损伤病人、精神病人、多动症儿童和其他认知发展障碍儿童的诊断和治疗提供帮助。

Cognitive flexibility is an important characteristic of the human mind, which is the basic premise of adaption and effective learning. Recently, many researchers explored the cognitive mechanism of cognitive flexibility as one of the main components of executive function. It has been found that cognitive flexibility is matured in teenager, and cognitive flexibility is correlated with the infant’s frontal EEG baseline strength and the connection strength of juvenile’s brain network related cognitive control. But the neural developmental mechanism of cognitive flexibility in childhood remains unclear, and it is unanswered how the children with different cognitive flexibility use different external feedback information to adjust their learning behavior. This project was proposed on the basis of previous studies, which utilized the classic paradigm of cognitive flexibility—Wisconsin card sorting test (WCST), and aimed to advance a unified paradigm to explore the 3-12 years old children's development of cognitive flexibility, and reveal the neural basis of rapid development of cognitive flexibility among children. In addition, we planned to compare the behavioral and neural difference between children with different cognitive flexibility when they make different types of errors. The findings from these studies would shed a light to further reveal the neural basis of intellectual development, provide theoretical guidance for educators to make different teaching plan, and can offer helps for the diagnosis and treatment of brain-damaged patients, mental patients, ADHD and children with other developmental problems.