When can we and when do we adapt? Evidence that conflict adaptation can transcend contexts early in childhood.

*This manuscript is not yet published* Developing the ability to focus on relevant information and ignore irrelevant information is crucial for navigating an ever-changing environment. This skill, cognitive control, can be studied using conflict tasks in which the relevant and irrelevant information in a trial either align or compete (congruency). Performance in these tasks can be affected not only by the current trial’s congruency but also by the previous trial’s congruency. In adults, this conflict adaptation has been reported to occur between trials of the same task and different tasks. The goal of this study was to study the development and flexibility of cognitive control by assessing conflict adaptation across different age groups and contexts. Two groups of children (aged 6 and 9 years) and one group of adults processed adaptations of the Stroop and Simon tasks and the resulting mouse-tracking variables (total movement time, initiation time, maximum absolute deviation values) were analysed. Across three experiments different context similarities were created depending on which tasks were combined. The results indicate that within-task conflict adaptation does not change qualitatively between 6-year-olds and adults. In contrast, across-task conflict adaptation does. Of note, transfer effects across very different contexts were observed in the youngest group of children, suggesting remarkable flexibility of cognitive control even early in development.