Faculty Publications

The Development of Attention and Response Inhibition in Early Childhood

Document Type

Article

Keywords

Attention, Development, Response inhibition

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Infant and Child Development

Volume

17

Issue

5

First Page

491

Last Page

502

Abstract

The goal of this study was to examine the development of attention and response inhibition from ages 5 to 7. Forty children (20 5-year-olds and 20 7-year-olds) completed four counter-balanced phases of a continuous performance task. Phase 1 was designed to measure attention without distraction, Phase 2 was designed to measure attention with distraction, Phase 3 was designed to measure attention and response inhibition without distraction, and Phase 4 was designed to measure attention and response inhibition with distraction. With regard to attention, 7-year-olds performed significantly better than 5-year-olds. This age difference was more pronounced when distraction was present. With regard to response inhibition, there were no significant age differences. These results appear to suggest that attention improves between ages 5 and 7 but response inhibition does not. However, conclusions regarding response inhibition were limited because the distraction appeared to have had too powerful an effect on the 5-year-olds. Implications and future directions are discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Department

Department of Psychology

Original Publication Date

9-1-2008

DOI of published version

10.1002/icd.563

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