Individual differences fill the uncharted intersections between cognitive structure, flexibility, and plasticity in multitasking.
DOI: 10.1037/rev0000376
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
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Summary
This theoretical note addresses a gap in multitasking research by proposing that individual differences serve as the critical link connecting three distinct research perspectives: cognitive structure, flexibility, and plasticity. While previous reviews (e.g., Koch et al., 2018) identified these perspectives as complementary, they lacked a formal framework explaining their intersections. The authors argue that focusing on group means has obscured the variability between and within participants, hindering a comprehensive understanding of how cognitive architecture, strategic adaptability, and long-term change interact. The paper aims to demonstrate how considering individual differences clarifies the dependencies among these perspectives, moving beyond the traditional assumption that multitasking inevitably incurs costs due to limited resources. The authors define cognitive structure as the "hardware" of the mind, comprising invariable properties like working memory capacity (WMC) and executive functions. Flexibility is defined as the "software," representing the organization of cognitive processes and the adaptability of strategies (e.g., serial vs. parallel processing) to environmental demands. Plasticity refers to long-term changes in performance due to training or aging. The paper synthesizes empirical evidence from task-switching, dual-task, and complex multitasking paradigms to illustrate these intersections. It highlights studies where participants’ strategic choices, such as task-order regulation or processing mode preferences, vary based on their structural capacities and contextual risks. Key findings indicate a strong bidirectional relationship between structure and flexibility. Individuals with higher WMC and executive skills exhibit greater flexibility, such as lower switch costs and the ability to adopt overlapping processing strategies. Conversely, structural constraints like WMC limit the degree of adaptability; for instance, flexible task scheduling relies heavily on available working memory resources. The intersection of structure and plasticity reveals mixed evidence regarding training benefits: some studies support a "compensation hypothesis" where those with lower baseline structural capacities benefit more from training, while others support a "magnification hypothesis" where high-capacity individuals improve more. Neural correlates, such as prefrontal cortex volume, also predict training responsiveness. The flexibility-plasticity intersection is less explored but suggests that metacognitive scaffolding and strategic flexibility can enhance training outcomes. The significance of this work lies in its call to shift multitasking research from nomothetic group averages to an Aristotelian focus on individual variability. The authors conclude that integrating individual differences allows for a more nuanced understanding of why certain individuals, such as "supertaskers," bypass cognitive bottlenecks. They recommend future research employ paradigms that relinquish experimental control to capture natural strategic variations and integrate standardized measures of executive functioning. This approach promises to resolve theoretical debates regarding the nature of cognitive bottlenecks and inform the development of personalized training interventions that account for individual structural and strategic profiles.
Key finding
Explicit consideration of individual differences serves as a unifying framework that explains the intersections and dependencies between cognitive structure, flexibility, and plasticity in multitasking research.
Methodology
review
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via author_sweep_intake on 2026-05-27.
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | author_sweep | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-27 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 7 | 2026-06-06 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
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| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| enrich | skipped | — | — | — | 3 | 2026-06-04 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 15 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
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