Selective Sustained Attention and Learning in Young Children

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

Selective sustained attention is the ability to maintain focus on some aspects of the environment over time while ignoring others. The ability to engage in selective sustained attention is crucial for learning and processing important information. This ability is influenced both by exogenous factors (relating to the characteristics of the environment, such as how noticeable, interesting, or novel an object is) and endogenous factors (relating to the characteristics of the individual, such as motivation or remembering the task goals). Over development, children become less easily influenced by exogenous factors, and endogenous factors begin to play a more important role. This project investigates how developmental change in the relative contributions of endogenous and exogenous factors influences different kinds of learning. Selective sustained attention develops throughout childhood, such that endogenous factors become more powerful in guiding attention. There are numerous experimental paradigms for studying sustained attention in infancy and adulthood. However, few experimental paradigms are appropriate for use with children between the ages of approximately 2 and 7 years, the period of heightened development of endogenous regulation of selective sustained attention. The investigators have developed a task --the Track-It task-- appropriate for studying selective sustained attention in children in this age range. In the Track-It task, children visually track a moving object on a screen, surrounded by either homogenous or heterogeneous moving distracters, and report the location of the target's disappearance. Performance on this task can distinguish between the contribution of endogenous and exogenous factors to sustained attention. This project will use response accuracy and patterns of eye movements in the Track-It task to: (1) investigate the development of endogenous regulation of selective sustained attention, and (2) investigate how exogenous and endogenous attention regulation contributes to implicit versus explicit learning. This research will advance understanding of the development of attention regulation and its implications for different types of learning.