Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST)[ 43]: Each participant completed the WCST as part of evaluation of executive functioning and, more specifically, cognitive flexibility.
This indicates a lack of flexibility to learn or unlearn new reward contingencies (to be distinguished from a more general cognitive flexibility to change problem-solving strategies when needed, as measured for example by the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test; Heaton, 1981) which is essential for adaptive functioning.
Researchers have more specifically described cognitive flexibility as the capacity to shift or switch one's thinking and attention between different tasks or operations typically in response to a change in rules or demands.
It was also interesting to note that women carriers of the Val allele performed better only in tests that demand more resources in cognitive flexibility and working memory, but not in tests that demand sustained processes and words generation.
Thus Met carriers would be expected to display greater efficiency and better performance on the elements of working memory and executive tasks that require stable maintenance of information, and Val carriers would be more efficient when cognitive flexibility is required, such as during rapid updating or task switching [ 13].
The results of five dots test indicated that the patients had significant impairment of figural fluency, innovation ability and cognitive flexibility more than the control group.
The TMT-B has been shown to be a valid indicator of executive functioning [ 21] and is likely to be more sensitive to assessing cognitive flexibility [ 20].
These results confirmed that the patients had impaired selective attention, concept formation, correction of errors, set shifting, behavioral control and modifications according to stimuli, inhibition of irrelevant responses, self-regulation capability and cognitive flexibility more than the control group.
The first part assessed visuospatial and motor skills of the subject; the second part assessed cognitive flexibility; more specifically, the time taken to carry out Part B of the task and the subtraction of time A from time B was considered a measure of cognitive flexibility.
