The facilitation of selective attention in preschoolers

Allocation of attention was examined on a selective attention task in which some items were relevant (i.e., their locations should be remembered) and some were irrelevant. 100 4- and 5-year-olds formed 4 experimental conditions and 1 control group. 3 experimental groups had 1 added feature to aid selectivity (fewer stimuli, increased perceptual salience of the difference between relevant and irrelevant stimuli, or extra reminders of the locations of relevant and irrelevant stimuli). The fourth experimental condition included all features. A story and explicit instructions identified which objects were relevant. During study times, children opened doors (marked with cages or houses) of a box to reveal animals or household objects. Selectivity (opening mainly relevant doors) was high, compared to previous studies using no story with 6-year-olds, even in the control condition. Selectivity increased significantly beyond the level in the control condition only when all facilitative features were combined. Selectivity was not significantly related to recall. This outcome, in conjunction with previous research, suggests a lag between the production of a strategy and its facilitative effect on recall.