Differential attention of two-month-old infants to synthetically generated and naturally produced rising and falling intonation contours was studied, and it was learned that infants attended more to naturally produced rising contours and synthetically generated falling contours. Use of the infant-control auditory preference paradigm was also…

Of 10 mildly retarded children (4 to 15 years old) with attention deficit disorders who were involved in an outpatient, double blind, active drug and placebo crossover study using methylphenidate, five children responded positively to active medication as measured by improvement in the Conners' rating forms for parents and teachers. (Author)

Kindergarten children were pretested on attention and conservation tasks. Natural conservers performed better than nonconservers on attention tasks during the pretest. Training in attention led experimental groups to perform better than a control group on both attention and conservation tasks. Younger children seemed to benefit from attention…

Contains a response to Harry Singer's comments (see EJ 217 553) about a previous article in this journal on focal attention by M. Arlin, M. Scott, and J. Webster (see EJ 206 153). Attempts to show that Singer's statements in the critique reflect some errors and misconceptions. (MKM)

The concentration box is an effective fantasy technique that increases student attention span and helps build the capacity to concentrate. It can be used with a small group, an entire class, or an individual. The procedure is outlined and suggestions are made. (Author/BEF)

Four pursuit-tracking experiments were conducted in an attempt to replicate with adults, Hockey's findings that loud noise increases attentional selectivity. Neither attentional selectivity nor masking of auditory feedback was found to be significant. For Hockey's reply and the authors' rejoinder, see p499-506 of this issue. (SJL)

Discussed is the college teacher as lecturer. Three basic areas are looked at: attention mechanisms, information processing, and memory. Nine suggestions are presented which, if employed, will improve the lecture process. (KC)

Binaural and dichotic tasks of varying complexity were given to seven- and nine-year-old children to investigate the interaction of laterality and selective attention. (JMB)

An open-ended interview and a series of multiple-choice questions probing children's concepts of attention were administered to 80 children in grades l, 3, and 5. Results showed that with increased age, the children's emphasis on external factors (such as noise level) as attentional determinants decreased while their emphasis on psychological…

There is the common assumption that the viewing of aggressive films can "facilitate" aggression in individuals who are predisposed to act aggressively. Questions the validity of that belief through an examination of methodology. (Author/RK)

The processing-capacity and arousal-level effects on choice between computer-generated "melodies" differing in complexity were compared in a divided-attention situation. (Editor)

Examined in two studies the moderating effect of perceptual load on visual selective attention. Found that children's performance was as efficient as adults' under conditions of high but not low loads, suggesting that early selection engages rapidly maturing neural systems and late selection engages later-maturing systems. The onset of early…

Describes an assessment and intervention approach that was added to a more traditional evaluation procedure to treat the attention deficits of a boy of 2 1/2 years who had mild cerebral palsy. (RJC)