Adaptive behaviour requires the ability to maintain focus on a task and to flexibly switch tasks, depending on the context. In this Perspective, Egner integrates the task focus and task switching literatures and suggests that cognitive stability and flexibility are supported by independent mechanisms.

Responses to potentially traumatic events go beyond the typical binary classification based on the presence or absence of psychopathology. In this Review, Bonanno et al. describe multiple outcome trajectories following adversity and consider how the different components of regulatory flexibility can promote resilience.

The ability to think spatially is associated with STEM success. In this Review, Taylor and colleagues discuss how visualizations engage spatial thinking and the role of visualizations across STEM fields.

Embodied theories propose that concept knowledge involves simulations of sensory information. In this Review, Muraki et al. discuss how studying individuals with an inability to form mental images can provide insight into the relationship between mental imagery and these mental simulations.