A long-standing issue in the study of how people acquire visual information centers around the scheduling and deployment of attentional resources: Is the process serial, or is it parallel? A substantial empirical effort has been dedicated to resolving this issue. However, the results remain largely inconclusive because the methodologies that have…

The article examines reasons for discrepant findings in two studies of attention differences in learning disabled students, focusing on four interacting factors in experimental research: task, materials, context, and subject characteristics. It is suggested that attentional deficits are not necessarily the underlying problem for all students with…

Apparent inconsistencies in the study of attention problems are not a function of the data, but of the belief system that underlies and guides data interpretation. Attention problems are more accurately viewed as a symptom of a more fundamental cognitive limitation, rather than the primary source of underachievement or learning problems.…

Describes research in two different domains: novices learning programing, and school pupils interpreting Cartesian graphs. Findings in each domain are discussed, but the main focus is an examination of the extent to which general principles and issues apply across both domains. Research implications for instructional design are discussed.…