Charting the developmental trajectories of attention and executive function in Chinese school-aged children - PubMed (original) (raw)

Charting the developmental trajectories of attention and executive function in Chinese school-aged children

Jian-Ying Zhan et al. Child Neuropsychol. 2011.

Abstract

Attention is a complex domain that has reawakened research interest in recent years. There are relatively few studies that have examined age-related changes across different attention subcomponents, such as selection, maintenance, and control, using large samples covering a wide age range. The present study assessed performance in 466 participants in order to identify the ages at which mature performance was reached across differing attention subcomponents. Furthermore, we investigated whether the nature of the attentional demands or task difficulty predicted the age at which stable levels of performance were reached. The results supported the former rather than the latter alternative.

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Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

Visual search measures plotted against age groups: (a) Mean time per hit; (b) Mean log number of false alarms; and (c) Mean number of mouse moves.

Figure 2

Figure 2

Vigilance measures plotted against age groups: (a) Mean number of hits; (b) Mean time per hit; (c) Mean log number of false alarms; and (d) Mean distance wandered while awaiting target.

Figure 3

Figure 3

WMST measures plotted against age groups: (a) Mean number of correct responses; (b) Mean log number of perseverative errors; (c) Mean response time following correct response; and (d) Mean response time following error.

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