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Updated: Feb 7, 2026

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Measuring Attentional Biases for Threat in Children and Adults
Published on: October 19, 2014
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Perceptual biases during cued task switching relate to decision process differences between children and adults
Joel E Martinez1, Michael L Mack1, Jessie-Raye Bauer1
1Department of Psychology.
Summary
Children
Area of Science:
- Cognitive psychology
- Developmental psychology
Background:
- Children's preparatory processing in cued task switching differs from adults.
- This may lead to biases from visual stimulus properties, like target-choice similarity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how target-choice similarity biases children and young adults in cued task switching.
- To examine the influence of age, working memory, and stimulus dimensions on this bias.
Main Methods:
- 215 participants (ages 6-27) played a cue-target game with varying working memory and attentional demands.
- Multidimensional stimuli were matched based on a cued dimension (pattern or shape).
- Drift diffusion analysis examined decision-making strategies.
Main Results:
- Younger age, low working memory, and fine-grained dimension matching (pattern) increased similarity bias.
- Older age, high working memory, and global dimension matching (shape) reduced bias.
- Children made more impulsive, similarity-driven decisions, especially with low working memory demands.
Conclusions:
- Children's preparation strategies can exacerbate perceptual biases in task performance.
- Age and task structure influence developmental transitions in cognitive control.
- Findings impact the interpretation of cognitive control in children.
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