@article{ref1,
title="Endogenous control is insufficient for preventing attentional capture in children and adults",
journal="Acta psychologica",
year="2022",
author="Hayre, Rumandeep K. and Cragg, Lucy and Allen, Harriet A.",
volume="228",
number="",
pages="103611-103611",
abstract="Adults are known to have developed the ability to selectively focus their attention in a goal-driven (endogenous) manner but it is less clear at what stage in development (5-6 & 9-11 years) children can endogenously control their attention and whether they behave similarly to adults when managing distractions. In this study we administered a child-adapted cued visual search task to three age-groups: five- to six-year-olds (N = 45), nine- to eleven-year-olds (N = 42) and adults (N = 42). Participants were provided with a cue which either guided their attention towards or away from an upcoming target. On some trials, a singleton distracter was presented which participants needed to ignore. Participants completed three conditions where the cues were: 1) usually helpful (High Predictive), 2) usually unhelpful (Low Predictive) and 3) never helpful (Baseline) in guiding attention towards the target. We found that endogenous cue-utilisation develops with increasing age. Overall, nine- to eleven-year-olds and adults, but not five- to six-year-olds, utilised the endogenous cues in the High Predictive condition. However, all age-groups were unable to ignore the singleton distracter even when using endogenous control. Moreover, we found better cue-maintenance ability was related to poorer distracter-inhibition ability in early-childhood, but these skills were no longer related further on in development. We conclude that overall endogenous control is still developing in early-childhood, but an adult-like form of this skill has been acquired by mid-childhood. Furthermore, endogenous cue-utilisation was shown as insufficient for preventing attentional capture in both children and adults.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0001-6918",
doi="10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103611",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103611"
}