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The development of selective attention: holistic perception versus resource allocation.

B E Shepp·S E Barrett·L L Kolbet
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Abstract

In two experiments, a speeded sorting task was administered to children. In each sorting, the child was instructed to sort a deck of cards according to values on one dimension while the values of a second irrelevant dimension were held constant, were correlated, or were varied orthogonally. Experiment 1 evaluated developmental changes in perceived structure as compared with such changes in the control of attention. Different groups of kindergarten, 2d-, and 5th-grade children performed the task with spatially integrated vs spatially separated dimensions. The results indicate that with spatially integrated dimensions there is a trend from holistic to featural perception and an increase in attentional control with increasing age. Spatially separate dimensions are perceived dimensionally at all ages, but show a trend in attentional development. In Experiment 2, the spatially integrated dimensions of Experiment 1 were made separable by portraying different targets within a configuration in different colors. The theoretical implications of the results are discussed.

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AttentionChildChild DevelopmentChild, PreschoolColor PerceptionDiscrimination LearningFemaleForm PerceptionHumansMaleOrientationPattern Recognition, VisualJournal ArticleResearch Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

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B E Shepp, S E Barrett, L L Kolbet. 1987. The development of selective attention: holistic perception versus resource allocation.. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-0965(87)90057-9

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