Development of endogenous orienting of attention in school-age children

Abstract

Orienting of attention was investigated in 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds and in young adults, in a spatial cueing experiment comparing nonpredictive, predictive, and counterpredictive cues (in different blocks). A larger positive orienting effect (advantage of valid over invalid cues) in the predictive than in the nonpredictive condition occurred in all groups, showing efficient endogenous orienting of attention. However, this effect was larger in 6-year-olds, as if the ability to distribute attention between the different locations (and not only to orient to the most probable location) developed between 6 and 8 years. Moreover, only 10-year-olds and adults showed a significant negative orienting effect (advantage of invalid cues) in the counterpredictive condition, indicating inhibition of attentional capture by goal-irrelevant stimuli. Therefore, our results indicate a large change in the modulation of endogenous orienting between 6 and 10 years.

Keywords:

• Development of attention
• Endogenous attention
• Orienting
• Inhibitory control
• Spatial cueing
• Predictiveness

Acknowledgments

We thank Zofia Laubitz and Dominic Rizzo for correcting our English. This work was supported by an Agence Nationale de la Recherche grant ANR-07-BLAN-0051 to ES.

Notes

¹Note that some exogenous component of attention may also be included in the cueing effect when using central cues like arrows (Ristic & Kingstone, 2006).

²Only one study in children used a minority of valid trials (33% with 67% invalid trials; Brodeur & Boden, 2000). However, in this study, the cues cannot be considered to be truly counterpredictive, because there were eight target locations overall, and thus seven possible target locations in invalid trials. In fact, Brodeur and Boden considered their study was about the spatial uncertainty effect.

³ Akhtar and Enns (1989) developed a similar argument to explain the larger orienting effect in 5- and 7-year-olds compared to adults in an experiment with nonpredictive peripheral cues.