Seven-year-olds Allocate Attention Like Adults Unless Working Memory is Overloaded

Overview

Journal Dev Sci

Specialty Psychology

Date 2010 Feb 4

PMID 20121868

Citations 43

Authors

Nelson Cowan

Candice C Morey

Angela M AuBuchon

Christopher E Zwilling

Amanda L Gilchrist

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Previous studies have indicated that visual working memory performance increases with age in childhood, but it is not clear why. One main hypothesis has been that younger children are less efficient in their attention; specifically, they are less able to exclude irrelevant items from working memory to make room for relevant items. We examined this hypothesis by measuring visual working memory capacity under a continuum of five attention conditions. A recognition advantage was found for items to be attended as opposed to ignored. The size of this attention-related effect was adult-like in young children with small arrays, suggesting that their attention processes are efficient even though their working memory capacity is smaller than that of older children and adults. With a larger working memory load, this efficiency in young children was compromised. The efficiency of attention cannot be the sole explanation for the capacity difference.

Citing Articles

Visual Working Memory in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Cissne M, Bellesheim K, Cowan N, Christ S J Autism Dev Disord. 2024; .

PMID: 39441474 DOI: 10.1007/s10803-024-06600-2.

Disentangling Processing and Storage Accounts of Working Memory Development in Childhood.

Superbia-Guimaraes L, Cowan N Dev Rev. 2023; 69.

PMID: 37662651 PMC: 10470321. DOI: 10.1016/j.dr.2023.101089.

Why does visual working memory ability improve with age: More objects, more feature detail, or both? A registered report.

Forsberg A, Adams E, Cowan N Dev Sci. 2022; 26(2):e13283.

PMID: 35611884 PMC: 10029097. DOI: 10.1111/desc.13283.

Working memory development: A 50-year assessment of research and underlying theories.

Cowan N Cognition. 2022; 224:105075.

PMID: 35247864 PMC: 9086174. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105075.

The development of metacognitive accuracy in working memory across childhood.

Forsberg A, Blume C, Cowan N Dev Psychol. 2021; 57(8):1297-1317.

PMID: 34591573 PMC: 8496917. DOI: 10.1037/dev0001213.

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