This study examined how well subjects of different ages were able to ignore the presence of irrelevant stimulus information. The speed of classification of 6-, 9- and 12-year-olds and adults was measured. Significant effects of age, sex, number of irrelevant dimensions, and relevant dimension on speed of classification were obtained. (GO)

In preparing instructional materials, consideration must be given to the students' attention. Carl Hagfors has conducted a number of experiments measuring the electrodermal response simultaneously from a number of subjects viewing the same materials. When most subjects were attentive there was a large discursion of the recorder pen. When some were…

Discusses the attention process and indicates the crucial role it plays in oral learning (listening). (DD)

Sixty children at each of two age levels (8 and 11 years old) performed a serial position recall task either in a control condition or under visual or auditory distraction and were tested for recall of task-relevant and task-irrelevant information. (Author/JMB)

Investigates whether noninstructional speech distracts normal school children from a vigilance task and examines the role played by meaningfulness and schedule of presentation in producing speech's effects. A total of 60 first grade males performed a 30-minute visual vigilance task under five conditions of auditory background stimulation.…

Self instructional training resulted in significant improvement in attention and accuracy rate for seven distractible students (9-15 years old). The approach, which featured modeling, prompting, and use of self-verbalizations to guide behavior, was more effective in attention improvement than strategy training. (CL)

Five hyperactive primary and intermediate students were taught biofeedback techniques designed to elevate finger temperature. Ss learned to raise their temperature and were observed to decrease hyperactive type behaviors while increasing attention to academic tasks. (CL)

The capability of young high ability children to cope with extraneous distractive stimuli during performance on a two-choice discrimination task was investigated. Results indicate that existing interpretations of the development of attentive abilities in children based on the notion of an increasing attention span are in need of elaboration or…

Three strategies for controlling concentration during academic tasks were evaluated: (1) self-initiated relaxation; (2) self-coaching; and (3) a combination of the first two types. Results indicated that the third strategy, significantly facilitated some aspects of academic performance. (Author/GK)

An interactional approach to attention problems in learning disabled children takes into account the degree of voluntary attention required by the task, the degree of structure in the setting, and the characteristics of the child. (CL)

Highly active second-grade boys made fewer correct detections in a 48-minute vigilance task than did their normal peers. Detection efficiency was inversely related to interval length, and this effect was more pronounced for the highly active group. (RC)

Comparison of alpha amplitudes of 12 children with learning disabilities and 12 normally achieving controls in three task situations found no significant differences between groups in alpha amplitude but a significant task effect with the vigilance, story comprehension, and rehearsal conditions showing decreasing alpha amplitudes in both groups of…

Sixty young children were tested for their understanding that a person who is mentally focused on one thing devotes little or no simultaneous attention to another, totally irrelevant thing. Though most 6- and 8-year olds demonstrated an understanding that task-oriented thought and attention were selectively focused, most of the 4-year olds showed…

In this study, the looking behavior of 16 autistic and 14 non-autistic children toward cartoon-like scenes that included a human figure was measured quantitatively using an infrared eye-tracking device. Fixation behavior of autistic children was similar to that of their age-and IQ-matched normal peers. Results do not support the idea that autistic…

This study examined whether a divided-attention, sentence recall task was more sensitive to distortion of the speech signal than a conventional focused-attention task with 18 normal hearing listeners. The study concluded that the simultaneous-sentence test, in its present form, is not more sensitive to the effects of peak clipping than is a…