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Monster Mischief: Designing a videogame to assess selective sustained attention
Abstract
Selective sustained attention, or the ability to allocate perceptual and mental resources to a single object or event, is an important cognitive ability widely assumed to be required for learning. Assessing young children’s selective sustained attention is challenging due to the limited number of sensitive and developmentally appropriate performance-based measures. Furthermore, administration of existing assessments is difficult, as children’s engagement with such tasks wanes quickly. One potential solution is to provide assessments within
an engaging environment, such as a video game. This paper reports the design and psychometric validation of a video game (Monster Mischief) designed to assess selective sustained attention in preschool children. In a randomized controlled trial, the authors demonstrate that Monster Mischief is significantly correlated with an existing measure of selective sustained attention (rs ≥ 0.52), and more motivating for young children as
almost 3 times more children preferred Monster Mischief to the existing measure.
The article presents the results of an empirical study of the interrelation between dynamic and total individual performance indicators of gaming behavior in the "PLines" game with test measurements of general intelligence and divergent creativity (N = 151). It is demonstrated that the dynamics of point accumulation in the game can be used, with a great likelihood, for relating subjects to determined groups with a certain level of ability (high intelligence and creativity vs low intelligence and creativity). The data that it is the high-test indicators of cognitive abilities that determine the effectiveness of the gaming behavior of the subjects, and not vice versa is another fundamental result of the study. The subjects of discussion are the prospects for further use of this computer game in the diagnosis of ability sets in real life, the need to expand the pool of investigated psychological indicators that contribute to decision making in a situation of uncertainty, and the benefits of referring to the procedural characteristics of solving problems in psychological diagnostics.
This chapter reviews the recent research on motivation, beliefs, values, and goals, focusing on developmental and educational psychology. The authors divide the chapter into four major sections: theories focused on expectancies for success (self-efficacy theory and control theory), theories focused on task value (theories focused on intrinsic motivation, self-determination, flow, interest, and goals), theories that integrate expectancies and values (attribution theory, the expectancy-value models of Eccles et al., Feather, and Heckhausen, and self-worth theory), and theories integrating motivation and cognition (social cognitive theories of self-regulation and motivation, the work by Winne & Marx, Borkowski et al., Pintrich et al., and theories of motivation and volition). The authors end the chapter with a discussion of how to integrate theories of self-regulation and expectancy-value models of motivation and suggest new directions for future research.
TENI (Test de Evaluación Neuropsicológica Infantil) is an instrument developed to assess cognitive abilities in children between 3 and 9 years of age. It is based on a model that incorporates games and technology as tools to improve the assessment of children's capacities. The test was standardized with two Chilean samples of 524 and 82 children living in urban zones. Evidence of reliability and validity based on current standards is presented. Data show good levels of reliability for all subtests. Some evidence of validity in terms of content, test structure, and association with other variables is presented. This instrument represents a novel approach and a new frontier in cognitive assessment. Further studies with clinical, rural, and cross-cultural populations are required.
Selective sustained attention (SSA) is vital for higher order cognition. Although endogenous and exogenous factors influence SSA, assessment of the degree to which these factors influence performance and learning is often challenging. We report findings from the Track-It task, a paradigm that aims to assess the contribution of endogenous and exogenous factors to SSA within the same task. Behavioral accuracy and eye-tracking data on the Track-It task were correlated with performance on a learning task. Behavioral accuracy and fixations to distractors did not predict learning when exogenous factors supported SSA. In contrast, fixations to distractors were negatively correlated with learning when endogenous factors supported SSA. Similarly, higher behavioral accuracy was correlated with greater learning when endogenous factors supported SSA. These findings suggest that although children showed equivalent levels of distractibility when exogenous and endogenous factors supported SSA, different conditions of the Track-It task likely engaged different attentional control mechanisms.
A large body of evidence supports the importance of focused attention for encoding and task performance. Yet young children with immature regulation of focused attention are often placed in elementary-school classrooms containing many displays that are not relevant to ongoing instruction. We investigated whether such displays can affect children's ability to maintain focused attention during instruction and to learn the lesson content. We placed kindergarten children in a laboratory classroom for six introductory science lessons, and we experimentally manipulated the visual environment in the classroom. Children were more distracted by the visual environment, spent more time off task, and demonstrated smaller learning gains when the walls were highly decorated than when the decorations were removed.
The paper begins with a review of some of the current literature on the use of survey methods with children. It then presents four known concerns with using survey methods for opinion gathering and reflects on how these concerns may impact on studies in Child Computer Interaction. The paper then investigates the use of survey methods in Child Computer Interaction and investigates the Fun Toolkit. Three new research studies into the efficacy and usefulness of the tools are presented and these culminate in some guidelines for the future use of the Fun Toolkit. The authors then offer some more general guidelines for HCI researchers and developers intending to use survey methods in their studies with children. The paper closes with some thoughts about the use of survey methods in this interesting but complex area.
Executive function, also known as cognitive control or supervisory attention, is required whenever going "on automatic". Classes of situations in which executive functions are required include novel tasks and situations that require concentration, planning, problem solving, coordination, change, conscious choices among alternatives, or overriding a strong internal or external pull. Component cognitive abilities that constitute what collectively is known as executive function include the following: inhibition, that is, the ability to ignore distraction and stay focused, and to resist making one response and instead make another; working memory, that is, the ability to hold information in mind and manipulate it; cognitive flexibility, that is, the ability to switch perspectives flexibly, focus of attention, or response mappings. These abilities are crucial to all forms of cognitive performance. The ability to inhibit attention to distractors makes possible selective and sustained attention. © 2006 by Ellen Bialystok, Fergus I.M. Craik. All rights reserved.
In a study of the development of the differentiation of fantasy from reality, it was hypothesized that preschool children would progress through a stepwise sequence of developing ever clearer boundaries between fantasy and reality. Evidence for this development was based on children's reactions to various kinds of interruptions to their fantasy play that were initiated by an experimenter as she engaged in role playing with each of 39 children. The children were 2½ to 6½ years of age. The results indicated that as age increased, children showed higher steps in the sequence, until at 5 and 6 years they could incorporate an interruption into the fantasy scenario without stepping outside the fantasy and without having the interruption upset them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A 2-process theory of human information processing is proposed and applied to detection, search, and attention phenomena. Automatic processing is activation of a learned sequence of elements in long-term memory that is initiated by appropriate inputs and then proceeds automatically--without S control, without stressing the capacity limitations of the system, and without necessarily demanding attention. Controlled processing is a temporary activation of a sequence of elements that can be set up quickly and easily but requires attention, is capacity-limited (usually serial in nature), and is controlled by the S. A series of studies, with approximately 8 Ss, using both reaction time and accuracy measures is presented, which traces these concepts in the form of automatic detection and controlled search through the areas of detection, search, and attention. Results in these areas are shown to arise from common mechanisms. Automatic detection is shown to develop following consistent mapping of stimuli to responses over trials. Controlled search was utilized in varied-mapping paradigms, and in the present studies, it took the form of serial, terminating search. (60 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Research on curiosity has undergone 2 waves of intense activity. The 1st, in the 1960s, focused mainly on curiosity's psychological underpinnings. The 2nd, in the 1970s and 1980s, was characterized by attempts to measure curiosity and assess its dimensionality. This article reviews these contributions with a concentration on the 1st wave. It is argued that theoretical accounts of curiosity proposed during the 1st period fell short in 2 areas: They did not offer an adequate explanation for why people voluntarily seek out curiosity, and they failed to delineate situational determinants of curiosity. Furthermore, these accounts did not draw attention to, and thus did not explain, certain salient characteristics of curiosity: its intensity, transience, association with impulsivity, and tendency to disappoint when satisfied. A new account of curiosity is offered that attempts to address these shortcomings. The new account interprets curiosity as a form of cognitively induced deprivation that arises from the perception of a gap in knowledge or understanding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Sustained selective attention is a crucial component of many higher-order cognitive processes; yet there is little research into the mechanisms of this ability early in development. One of the challenges in investigating mechanisms of sustained selective attention in young children is lack of appropriate experimental paradigms. This paper reports findings from a novel paradigm designed to investigate mechanisms of sustained selective attention in young children -the Object Tracking task. Results of two experiments with 3-to 5-year-old children provided support to the notion that development of the endogenous component of selective sustained attention lags behind the development of the exogenous component of this process. Importantly, the Object Tracking paradigm allowed investigating both of these components within the same task, thereby making it possible to attribute changes in performance to different mechanisms of attentional control rather than to differences in the level of motivation and engagement in different tasks.
Four studies apply self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2000) in investigating motivation for computer game play,
and the effects of game play on well-being. Studies 1–3 examine individuals playing 1, 2 and 4 games, respectively and show
that perceived in-game autonomy and competence are associated with game enjoyment, preferences, and changes in well-being
pre- to post-play. Competence and autonomy perceptions are also related to the intuitive nature of game controls, and the
sense of presence or immersion in participants’ game play experiences. Study 4 surveys an on-line community with experience
in multi-player games. Results show that SDT’s theorized needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness independently predict
enjoyment and future game play. The SDT model is also compared with Yee’s (2005) motivation taxonomy of game play motivations.
Results are discussed in terms of the relatively unexplored landscape of human motivation within virtual worlds.
The prefrontal cortex (PFC) undergoes one of the longest periods of development of any brain region, taking over two decades to reach full maturity in humans. This chapter focuses on normal development, dividing it into the following epochs: 0-1 years, 1-3 years, 3-7 years, and 7 years through early adulthood. For each epoch, it summarizes some of what is known about (a) the development of the working memory and inhibitory control functions that depend on PFC and (b) the anatomical and biochemical developmental changes in PFC during that period.
Processing speed (Gs) and working memory (WM) tasks have received considerable interest as correlates of more complex cognitive performance measures. Gs and WM tasks are often repetitive and are often rigidly presented, however. The effects of Gs and WM may, therefore, be confounded with those of motivation and anxiety. In an effort to address this problem, we assessed the concurrent and predictive validity of computer-game-like tests of Gs (Space Code) and WM (Space Matrix) across two experiments. In Experiment 1, within a university sample (N = 70), Space Matrix exhibited concurrent validity as a WM measure, whereas Space Code appeared to be a mixed-ability measure. In Experiment 2, Space Matrix exhibited concurrent validity as well as predictive validity (as a predictor of school grades) within a school-aged sample (N = 94), but the results for Space Code were less encouraging. Relationships between computer-game-like tests and gender, handedness, and computer-game experience are also discussed.
Two types of theories have been advanced to account for how attention is allocated in performing goal-directed visual tasks. According to location-based theories, visual attention is allocated to spatial locations in the image; according to object-based theories, attention is allocated to perceptual objects. Evidence for the latter view comes from experiments demonstrating the importance of perceptual grouping in selective-attention tasks. This article provides further evidence concerning the importance of perceptual organization in attending to objects. In seven experiments, observers tracked multiple randomly moving visual elements under a variety of conditions. Ten elements moved continuously about the display for several seconds; one to five of them were designated as targets before movement initiation. At the end of movement, one element was highlighted, and subjects indicated whether or not it was a target. The ease with which the elements in the target set could be perceptually grouped was systematically manipulated. In Experiments 1-3, factors that influenced the initial formation of a perceptual group were manipulated; this affected performance, but only early in practice. In Experiments 4-7, factors that influenced the maintenance of a perceptual group during motion were manipulated; this affected performance throughout practice. The results suggest that observers spontaneously grouped the target elements and directed attention toward this coherent but nonrigid virtual object. This supports object-based theories of attention and demonstrates that perceptual grouping, which is usually conceived of as a purely stimulus-driven process, can also be governed by goal-directed mechanisms.
Two studies examined the effects of embedding instructional materials in relevant fantasy contexts on children's motivation and learning. In Study 1, Ss showed marked preferences for computer-based educational programs that involved fantasy elements. In Study 2, Ss worked with these programs for 5 hr. One program presented purely abstract problems. Others presented identical problems within fantasy contexts. Some Ss chose among 3 fantasies; others were assigned identical fantasies. Tests on the material occurred before, immediately after, and 2 weeks after the experimental sessions. Ss showed significantly greater learning and transfer in the fantasy than in the no-fantasy conditions. Having a choice of fantasies made no difference. Motivational and individualization strategies for enhancing interest and promoting learning are discussed.
: The concept of attention as central to human performance extends back to the start of experimental psychology, yet even a few years ago, it would not have been possible to outline in even a preliminary form a functional anatomy of the human attentional system. New developments in neuroscience have opened the study of higher cognition to physiological analysis, and have revealed a system of anatomical areas that appear to be basic to the selection of information for focal (conscious) processing. The importance of attention is its unique role in connecting the mental level of description of processes used in cognitive science with the anatomical level common in neuroscience. Sperry describes the central role that mental concepts play in understanding brain function. As is the case for sensory and motor systems of the brain, our knowledge of the anatomy of attention is incomplete. Nevertheless, we can now begin to identify some principles of organization that allow attention to function as a unified system for the control of mental processing. Although many of our points are still speculative and controversial, we believe they constitute a basis for more detailed studies of attention from a cognitive-neuroscience viewpoint. Perhaps even more important for furthering future studies, multiple methods of mental chronometry, brain lesions, electrophysiology, and several types of neuro-imaging have converged on common findings.
The prefrontal cortex has long been suspected to play an important role in cognitive control, in the ability to orchestrate thought and action in accordance with internal goals. Its neural basis, however, has remained a mystery. Here, we propose that cognitive control stems from the active maintenance of patterns of activity in the prefrontal cortex that represent goals and the means to achieve them. They provide bias signals to other brain structures whose net effect is to guide the flow of activity along neural pathways that establish the proper mappings between inputs, internal states, and outputs needed to perform a given task. We review neurophysiological, neurobiological, neuroimaging, and computational studies that support this theory and discuss its implications as well as further issues to be addressed
This chapter focuses on the clinical aspects of attention including anatomy, cognitive neuropsychology, disorders, and functional imaging evidence for the role of attention in cognition. Particular emphasis is given to selected aspects of visual attention. Imaging studies discussed are primarily functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET). In addition, some evidence will be provided from the time-honoured clinical method of lesion studies.
As Titchener pointed out more than one hundred years ago, attention is at the center of the psychological enterprise. Attention research investigates how voluntary control and subjective experience arise from and regulate our behavior. In recent years, attention has been one of the fastest growing of all fields within cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. This review examines attention as characterized by linking common neural networks with individual differences in their efficient utilization. The development of attentional networks is partly specified by genes, but is also open to specific experiences through the actions of caregivers and the culture. We believe that the connection between neural networks, genes, and socialization provides a common approach to all aspects of human cognition and emotion. Pursuit of this approach can provide a basis for psychology that unifies social, cultural, differential, experimental, and physiological areas, and allows normal development to serve as a baseline for understanding various forms of pathology. D.O. Hebb proposed this approach 50 years ago in his volume Organization of Behavior and continued with introductory textbooks that dealt with all of the topics of psychology in a common framework. Use of a common network approach to psychological science may allow a foundation for predicting and understanding human behavior in its varied forms.
Attention is a familiar and ubiquitous psychological construct that is widely alluded to in various scientific, clinical, and colloquial domains. Attention also remains as one of the least well-understood cognitive functions. The processes that represent the construct of attention are often said to share a common theme of “selection.” However, the process of selection is complex and depends on a number of subsidiary processes, such as detection, localization, and probably some form of recognition. Advances in the cognitive neuroscience of attention have elucidated the neural pathways by which these processes occur and have lent support to the notion of the existence of many “varieties” of attention. Selection may be accomplished by different, seemingly independent neural substrates and thus, the nature, character, and function of attention during development can be determined by the interaction of different systems at different levels of maturity.
Using 6 longitudinal data sets, the authors estimate links between three key elements of school readiness--school-entry academic, attention, and socioemotional skills--and later school reading and math achievement. In an effort to isolate the effects of these school-entry skills, the authors ensured that most of their regression models control for cognitive, attention, and socioemotional skills measured prior to school entry, as well as a host of family background measures. Across all 6 studies, the strongest predictors of later achievement are school-entry math, reading, and attention skills. A meta-analysis of the results shows that early math skills have the greatest predictive power, followed by reading and then attention skills. By contrast, measures of socioemotional behaviors, including internalizing and externalizing problems and social skills, were generally insignificant predictors of later academic performance, even among children with relatively high levels of problem behavior. Patterns of association were similar for boys and girls and for children from high and low socioeconomic backgrounds.
This book provides both a review of the literature and a theoretical framework for understanding the development of visual attention from infancy through early childhood, including the development of selective and state-related aspects in infants and young children as well as the emergence of higher controls on attention. They explore individual differences in attention and possible origins of ADHD.
The effect of background television on 6- and 12-month-olds’ attention during 20 min of toy play was examined. During the first or second half of the session, a clip from a variety of commonly available television programs was presented. The duration and frequency of infants’ looks to the toys and to the television indicated that regardless of age or program content, background television frequently got, but did not hold the infants’ attention. An order effect indicated that infants looked longer at the television when it was available in the second half of the session. Examination of infants’ focused attention to the toys showed a reduction in the mean length of focused episodes when the television was on. A follow-up of the infants at 24 months indicated greater resistance to distraction by the television during play. Data from the three ages showed that individual differences in the amount of viewing were moderately stable across age and across home and lab contexts.
To examine the interactive effects of stimulus characteristics and attentional state on the allocation of attention in infancy, we presented distractor stimuli to 7-month-old infants while they explored novel objects, and we measured the infants' latencies to turn toward the distractors. Two different types of distractor stimuli (single-tone vs. alternating-tone) were used. For each stimulus presentation we determined whether the infant was engaged in focused or casual attention toward the novel object before the distractor was presented. As in previous studies, we found that distraction latencies were shorter during casual attention than during focused attention, but this effect was found to interact with the type of distractor stimulus. There was no effect of attentional state for the alternating-tone distractor, whereas there was an effect of attentional state for the single-tone distractor. Thus, external stimulus variables interact with an infant's internal attentional state to determine the moment-by-moment allocation of attention.
Although equivalence testing is preferred when a researcher's goal is to support the null hypothesis (i.e., no substantial effect), equivalence tests are virtually unknown and unused in the communication field. This article provides the rationale for and theoretical background of equivalence testing and offers examples of equivalence tests for the independent and dependent groups t-test and tests of association using Pearson's coefficient or correlation. From a review of meta-analyses, we provide tables of commonly observed effect-sizes across subdisciplines and topic areas in communication and offer these as a guideline for choosing minimum substantial effects (Δ) in equivalence testing when no other information source is available. To facilitate the adoption of equivalence tests in future research, we provide easy-to-use custom dialogs for SPSS which greatly simplify their computation and application.
This study examined sustained attention in children aged 2-6 years in two settings; during free play and during a structured test. Subjects were 48 nursery schoolchildren and 47 kindergarteners. In the free play setting, linear and quadratic relations with age were found for ability to sustain attention as measured by duration of play time and number of attended activities. Linear and quadratic relations were also found for distractibility as measured by the number of pauses in play. Older children tended to return to a previously attended activity following a break, whereas younger children did not. The ability to sustain attention increased until the age of 4 years, after which a plateau in development appeared. Results from the structured test showed no significant differences between age groups on the time spent attending to pictures, but revealed a significant linear trend for the ability to recall items from pictures. It is suggested that free play may be a sensitive measure of preschool-aged children’s ability to sustain attention.
The purpose of this project was to investigate the maintenance of focused attention in the first 5 years. In Study 1, 67 children were seen at 1, 2, and 3.5 years of age in free play with a number of age-appropriate toys. The duration of focused attention increased significantly over the ages studied. At 1 year, the children's focused attention showed a decline within the session; at the 2 older ages, however, focused attention neither decreased nor increased. In Study 2, children at 2.5, 3.5, and 4.5 years were also seen in free play. The results replicated the significant increase in focused attention over age and the lack of change within the session. Older children focused attention significantly more on construction and problem solving than did younger children, and manifested less inattention by physical movement away from the toys. The observed development in focused attention, therefore, is probably related both to the increased variety and complexity of the child's activities and to increasing inhibitory control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Many theories of early word learning begin with the uncertainty inherent to learning a word from its co-occurrence with a visual scene. However, the relevant visual scene for infant word learning is neither from the adult theorist's view nor the mature partner's view, but is rather from the learner's personal view. Here we show that when 18-month old infants interacted with objects in play with their parents, they created moments in which a single object was visually dominant. If parents named the object during these moments of bottom-up selectivity, later forced-choice tests showed that infants learned the name, but did not when naming occurred during a less visually selective moment. The momentary visual input for parents and toddlers was captured via head cameras placed low on each participant's forehead as parents played with and named objects for their infant. Frame-by-frame analyses of the head camera images at and around naming moments were conducted to determine the visual properties at input that were associated with learning. The analyses indicated that learning occurred when bottom-up visual information was clean and uncluttered. The sensory-motor behaviors of infants and parents were also analyzed to determine how their actions on the objects may have created these optimal visual moments for learning. The results are discussed with respect to early word learning, embodied attention, and the social role of parents in early word learning.
First, a number of previous theories of intrinsic motivation are reviewed. Then, several studies of highly motivating computer games are described. These studies focus on what makes the games fun, not on what makes them educational. Finally, with this background, a rudimentary theory of intrinsically motivating instruction is developed, based on three categories: challenge, fantasy, and curiosity.Challenge is hypothesized to depend on goals with uncertain outcomes. Several ways of making outcomes uncertain are discussed, including variable difficulty level, multiple level goals, hidden information, and randomness. Fantasy is claimed to have both cognitive and emotional advantages in designing instructional environments. A distinction is made between extrinsic fantasies that depend only weakly on the skill used in a game, and intrinsic fantasies that are intimately related to the use of the skill. Curiosity is separated into sensory and cognitive components, and it is suggested that cognitive curiosity can be aroused by making learners believe their knowledge structures are incomplete, inconsistent, or unparsimonious.
Focuses on the importance of applying knowledge and skills learned by students in one context to other situations. Significance of the technique in education; Problems associated with the technique; Model used to estimate the prospects of teaching for transfer. INSET: Must We Choose Between Cultural Literacy and Critical Thinking?.
Development refers to the mechanisms of change that ultimately lead to maturity in adulthood. Although much is known about the significant advances that occur in infancy and childhood, relatively less is known of the mechanisms that support the later parts of development in adolescence as mature-level behavior is approached. Early development involves the acquisition of abilities that significantly change behavior, but as maturity is reached, the changes are more subtle and involve the sophistication of abilities. This process begins in adolescence and can be conceptualized as occurring at the bend in the curve of development just before the curve flattens representing adult stability.
There is considerable evidence that visual attention is concentrated at a single locus in the visual field, and that this locus can be moved independent of eye movements. Two studies are reported which suggest that, while certain aspects of attention require that locations be scanned serially, at least one operation may be carried out in parallel across several independent loci in the visual field. That is the operation of indexing features and tracking their identity. The studies show that: (a) subjects are able to track a subset of up to 5 objects in a field of 10 identical randomly-moving objects in order to distinguish a change in a target from a change in a distractor; and (b) when the speed and distance parameters of the display are designed so that, on the basis of some very conservative assumptions about the speed of attention movement and encoding times, the predicted performance of a serial scanning and updating algorithm would not exceed about 40% accuracy, subjects still manage to do the task with 87% accuracy. These findings are discussed in relation to an earlier, and independently motivated model of feature-binding--called the FINST model--which posits a primitive identity maintenance mechanism that indexes and tracks a limited number of visual objects in parallel. These indexes are hypothesized to serve the function of binding visual features prior to subsequent pattern recognition.
Previous research suggests a developmental lag between producing a strategy of selective attention and benefiting from it. This aspect of the transitional period during strategy acquisition was investigated in the present study by comparing recall following child-produced (Session 1) and experimenter-produced (Session 2) strategies. The 114 7-9-year-olds were told to remember a subset of 6 items (either animals or household) located beneath 2 rows of doors. Session 1 assessed each child's spontaneous strategy (pattern of opening doors) over 6 trials. Session 2 included 7 different trial types, during which the experimenter opened the doors, thereby equating the strategies for children of all ages. The results revealed gradual changes in children's ability both to produce and to benefit from a selective strategy. Whereas younger children performed differently on trial types during which only the 6 relevant versus all 12 items were shown, older children recalled a similar number of items for all trial types, regardless of the number or pattern of door openings provided. Adult-produced selectivity eliminated recall differences among the grades and suggested that strategy production is effortful for younger children and therefore may prevent their benefiting from the strategy.
This individual differences study examined the separability of three often postulated executive functions-mental set shifting ("Shifting"), information updating and monitoring ("Updating"), and inhibition of prepotent responses ("Inhibition")-and their roles in complex "frontal lobe" or "executive" tasks. One hundred thirty-seven college students performed a set of relatively simple experimental tasks that are considered to predominantly tap each target executive function as well as a set of frequently used executive tasks: the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), Tower of Hanoi (TOH), random number generation (RNG), operation span, and dual tasking. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the three target executive functions are moderately correlated with one another, but are clearly separable. Moreover, structural equation modeling suggested that the three functions contribute differentially to performance on complex executive tasks. Specifically, WCST performance was related most strongly to Shifting, TOH to Inhibition, RNG to Inhibition and Updating, and operation span to Updating. Dual task performance was not related to any of the three target functions. These results suggest that it is important to recognize both the unity and diversity of executive functions and that latent variable analysis is a useful approach to studying the organization and roles of executive functions.
Recent progress in the study of attention and performance is discussed, focusing on the nature of attentional control and the effects of practice. Generally speaking, the effects of mental set are proving more pervasive than was previously suspected, whereas automaticity is proving less robust. Stimulus attributes (e.g. onsets, transients) thought to have a "wired-in" ability to capture attention automatically have been shown to capture attention only as a consequence of voluntarily adopted task sets. Recent research suggests that practice does not have as dramatic effects as is commonly believed. While it may turn out that some mental operations are automatized in the strongest sense, this may be uncommon. Recent work on task switching is also described; optimal engagement in a task set is proving to be intimately tied to learning operations triggered by the actual performance of a new task, not merely the anticipation of such performance.
This study evaluated the interactive effects of endogenous and exogenous influences on infants' attention allocation by assessing the role of target familiarity on distraction latency during object exploration. In Experiment 1 (N = 54), infants' distraction latencies as they investigated both familiar toys (ones they previously had seen in a familiarization procedure) and novel toys (ones they had not seen in the familiarization procedure) were assessed longitudinally at 6.5 and 9 months of age. In Experiment 2 (N = 32), infants' distraction latencies were assessed at either 6.5 or 10 months as they investigated either familiar or novel targets. In both experiments, older infants, but not younger infants, exhibited longer latencies as they investigated novel toys as compared with their latencies as they investigated familiar toys. These results are discussed in terms of developmental changes in the interactive effects of endogenous and exogenous factors controlling attention allocation.
This observational study describes the early development of attention and discractibility. Under several conditions of distraction, 172 children at 10, 26, and 42 months of age played with toys. Attention to the toys was coded as casual, settled, or focused. All 3 levels of attention changed with age, withcasual attention decreasing and focused attention increasing. The 10-month-olds were more distractible than the other children, even during focused attention. The infants were most distracted by the auditory-visual distractor, whereas the oldest children were most distracted by the visual distractor. Some 42-month-olds showed evidence of being more focused in the presence of distractors. Overall, the results point to a developmental transition in the processes underlying attention during play.
(1) The continuous performance test, a procedure for the detection and study of brain damage in humans, is described. (2) Three groups of Ss, each including a brain-damaged and a non-brain-damaged subgroup, were tested on this procedure. (3) The brain-damaged subgroups were significantly inferior to their non-brain-damaged controls on the measures yielded by the CPT, and these differences were increased when the difficulty of the task was increased. (4) The CPT is sufficiently reliable and yields sufficiently large differences between subgroups to suggest that it might ultimately prove useful as a clinical instrument for the diagnosis of brain damage. (5) An interpretation of the inferior performance of the brain-damaged Ss was offered in terms of impairment in attention or alertness and suggestions were made about future research relating cerebral events and CPT performance.
The relationship between attention and problem solving in 17-24 month old children
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Digital Games for Learning: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (Executive Summary)
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The impact of choice on child sustained attention in the preschool classroom
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