title: Event-related potential and behavioral measures of attention in 5-, 7-, and 9-year-olds.
abstract: In 2 experiments, the development of auditory selective attention in children was assessed. The participants, aged 5, 7, and 9 years, responded to target stimuli in the left ear for 1 series (ignoring the standard stimuli) and in the right ear for the other series. In Experiment 1, event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked by the auditory stimuli were recorded from frontal, central, and parietal sites. The 9-year-olds showed a greater processing negativity (Nd) to the attended channel compared with the 5-year-olds. Both 7- and 9-year-olds showed significantly larger amplitudes for the P3 component of ERPs in the attended vs. ignored condition. Behaviorally, the 5-year-olds made fewer hits and more false alarms than did older children, and the 9-year-olds made significantly more false alarms than did the 7-year-olds. The results of Experiment 2 showed that the detriment in the performance of the 9-year-olds was a result of task parameters. The inability of 5-year-olds to attend selectively appears to involve problems with the inhibition of the processing of irrelevant information and with selection of the correct response.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater 74078, USA.
authors.forename: Jami
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bartgis
authors.forename: Alesha R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Lilly
authors.forename: David G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Thomas
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011897:Random Allocation