Attention
Do children's brains pick out targets in a search like adults'?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Children aged 9 to 12 showed the same brain signature of selecting a target among distractors as adults, just larger and slightly later.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Human experiment — Colour-defined visual search task with target and distractor locations varied within subjects; ERPs (N2pc at P7/P8) compared between children and adults.
- N
- N=40 · 21 adults and 19 children analysed after excluding 5 of each group for incomplete data or artifacts (26 adults and 24 children recruited); one participant dropped from behavioural analysis.
- Population
- Right-handed children aged 9-12 and young adults from Western Massachusetts
- Outcome
- N2pc amplitude and latency; search accuracy and reaction time
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Key findings
Both children and adults showed an N2pc when the target was to one side, whether the distractor was on the other side or in the middle, and neither group showed one when the target was in the middle and only the distractor was to the side. This suggests children already use top-down attention to select the target and are not pulled toward the distractor. Children's N2pc peaked later (mean latency of 263.7 versus 242.5 milliseconds) and their brain responses were larger overall, and children were slower and less accurate than adults. Adults showed a clearer separation between location conditions than children did.
Methodology
The researchers recorded EEG from 19 children aged 9 to 12 and 21 young adults while they searched brief displays of eight letters and numbers. Two items were coloured, and participants attended to one colour and reported whether the item in that colour was a letter or a number. The positions of the target and the distracting coloured item were varied, so the team could measure the N2pc, an electrical signal over the side of the head opposite an attended item.
Limitations
The samples were small (19 children and 21 adults), mostly White and from one region, and about a third of trials were rejected for artifacts. The study cannot say whether the N2pc reflects boosting the target, suppressing the distractor, or both, so it does not show which of these processes differ between children and adults. Children's more variable data may have hidden subtler age differences, and only one age band of children was tested, so it does not map how the N2pc develops across childhood.
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