This chapter addresses how cognitive flexibility enables an individual to respond adaptively to new situations and respond appropriately to any situation. Interrupting automaticity avoids being trapped in mindsets that foreclose generating new options; avoiding reductive bias reduces the tendency to oversimplify and turn dynamic processes into fixed objects and make complex interactions linear; avoiding functional fixedness reduces the tendency to apply the same solution to different situations; and cognitive connectivity opens up to new approaches in which mental models can be transformed, schemata reorganized, and cognitive bridges built between previous expertise and new situations. This kind of cognitive flexibility enables individuals to respond and adapt to the new situation into which they are moving. This is discussed in light of the retrospective interviews with twenty-four elite performers in three domains (business, sports, and music) who successfully and repeatedly transitioned to higher positions within their field.

Numerous studies on the development of memory strategies have been carried out since the mid-1960s. Chapters 4 and 5 summarize major findings of this research program. My comments elaborate on core results in this field, focusing on interrelationships among strategy use, metacognitive knowledge, and domain knowledge during the course of childhood and adolescence. It is demonstrated that longitudinal research, in particular, research carried out in educational contexts, significantly adds to our knowledge in this field. Moreover, it is shown that research findings presented by Peter Ornstein and his colleagues considerably contributed to our understanding of children’s memory strategy development.