Studied in three experiments the distribution and malleability of visual attention in 5-month-olds while they inspected large geometric designs. Established that infants who were short-lookers had novelty scores above chance, whereas long-lookers demonstrated chance responding. Illuminating different parts of visual display induced long-lookers to…

This article suggests ways educators can physically alter a general education classroom to support the strengths of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and not exacerbate their problems. Characteristics, general strategies, and structural responses are provided for four common difficulties: (1) hyperactivity, (2)…

Boredom is a common experience in healthy individuals and may be elevated in various neurological or psychiatric conditions. As yet, very little is known about the cognitive or neural bases of the subjective experience of boredom. We examined temporal perception and the temporal allocation of attention in healthy individuals reporting high- or…

Objective: To test the hypothesis that intensive multimodal psychosocial intervention (that includes academic assistance and psychotherapy) combined with methylphenidate significantly enhances the academic performance and emotional status of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) compared with methylphenidate alone and with…

Objective: To test the hypothesis that multimodal psychosocial intervention, which includes parent training, combined with methylphenidate significantly enhances the behavior of parents of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), compared with methylphenidate alone and compared with methylphenidate and nonspecific…

Preschool children's listening time responses to free versus directed listening activities were compared. For the free condition, children were instructed just to "listen as long as you would like." The directed condition was a written task designed to focus attention on specific aspects of the music and give children something concrete to do…

In this study, the authors investigated the characteristics of use, misuse, and abuse of stimulant medication (primarily methylphenidate and variants) among students at a northeastern US university. Researchers sent an invitation to take an Internet survey to student e-mail addresses and passed 150 paper surveys in undergraduate classes, analyzing…

Young infants have repeatedly been shown to be slower than older infants to shift fixation from a midline stimulus to a peripheral stimulus. This is generally thought to reflect maturation of the neural substrates that mediate the disengagement of attention, but this developmental difference may also be attributable to young infants' slower…

The purpose of this study is to see if older adults who experience problems with thought suppression tend to encounter greater difficulty deriving a sense of meaning in life. Data from a longitudinal nationwide survey of older people (N = 988) indicate that greater difficulty with thought suppression is associated with a decline in meaning over…

The aim of this study was to ascertain the nature of the interaction between the affective value of musical distraction, personality type and performance on the cognitive tasks of reading comprehension, free recall, mental arithmetic and verbal reasoning in children aged 11-12 years. It was hypothesized that the cognitive performance of extraverts…

This article consists of a review of 16 research studies on treatments in school settings for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) carried out in the last decade. It includes both simple interventions and multicomponent interventions where different techniques are combined. Based on this revision, the conclusion is drawn…

The Concept Shifting Test (CST) is a newly developed Trail Making Type test that measures concept shifting and executive functioning. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether CST performance was affected by age, gender, educational level, or handedness and to establish the normal range of test performance. The CST was…

This study investigated the role of executive function in children with attention deficit disorders (ADD) by comparing differences resulting when diagnostic measures of reading comprehension consisting of either short or long passages were used. Subjects (all in grades 1-12) were grouped as having an attention deficit disorder (ADD) and not taking…

A total of 24 children, meeting several criteria for being diagnosed as having an attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity, were selected for study. Children were assigned to one of three conditions: a meditation-training group, a progressive-muscle-relaxation group, or a waiting-list control group. Subjects in the training groups were seen…

Tested two hypotheses to account for results of an earlier study in which preschoolers failed to display differential behavior when instructed to memorize itmes or merely to examine them perceptually. Subjects included second and fifth graders as well as preschoolers. (CW)