Children's and Adults' Knowledge about What Variables Affect Selective Attention

Abstract

MILLER, PATRICIA H., and Wmass, MICHAEL C. Children's and Adults' Knowledge about What Variables Affect Selective Attention. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 543-549. The purpose of this research was to examine developmental changes in the knowledge about what variables affect performance on the incidental learning task. In the typical incidental learning task, subjects are told to remember 1 category of objects (e.g., animals) when other objects not to be remembered (e.g., household objects) are present. Kindergartners, second graders, fifth graders, and college students indicated on a rating scale how many animals a hypothetical person would remember under easy and difficult levels of each variable. The 11 variables examined were person, task, and strategy variables known to affect recall. Most of the increase in understanding came between kindergarten, when 4 of the 11 variables were understood, and second grade, when 9 variables were understood. In general, understanding of external variables (task variables) developed later than understanding of internal variables (person or strategy variables). This finding was discussed in the framework of social attribution theory.