Attention And Cognitive Development

"My experience is what I agree to attend to," wrote William James (1890) nearly a century ago in his Principles of Psychology. Although certainly not the first to recognize the importance of attention in man's experience--poets and philosophers throughout history have touched upon the concept in one way or another-James deserves credit for having accorded attention a central role in the systematic study of the mind. With the advancement of psychology since that time, except during the behaviorist digression, the concept of attention has been an integral part of many prominent theories dealing with learning, thinking, and other aspects of cognitive functioning. Indeed, attention is an important determinant of experience from birth throughout development. This has been an implicit assumption underlying our view of cognition since the writings of Charles Darwin (1897) and Wilhelm Preyer (1888) as well as James, all of whom offered provocative insights about the developing child's commerce with the environment. Al though systematic research on attention in children was slow to pick up during the early part of this century, interest in the developmental study of attention has expanded enormously in recent years.

This volume presents an up-to-date review of developmental aspects of human attention by leading researchers and theorists. The papers included in the first section consider the ways in which newborns are pretuned to visual, auditory, linguistic, and social features of their environment, as well as how selectivity to these features changes in the first year of life. The following section examines properties of the visual and auditory world that are attention-getting for children. Developmental increases in capacity and strategy are also examined in this section through the study of perception, memory, problem-solving and language. Section III explores several ways in which selective processing can fail in development (e.g. autism, hyperactivity, and psychopathy) while Section IV reports on those aspects of selectivity that are lost (and preserved) in the aging process.

In recent years there has been a shift within developmental psychology away from examining the cognitive systems at different ages, to trying to understand exactly what are the mechanisms that generate change. What kind of learning mechanisms and representational changes drive cognitive development? How can the imaging techniques available help us to understand these mechanisms? This new volume in the highy cited and critically acclaimed Attention and Performance series is the first to provide a systematic investigation into the processes of change in mental development. It brings together world class scientists to address brain and cognitive development at several different levels, including phylogeny, genetics, neurophysiology, brain imaging, behavior, and computational modeling, across both typically and atypically developing populations. Presenting original new research from the frontiers of cognitive neuroscience, this book will have a substantial impact in this field, as well as on developmental psychology and developmental neuroscience.

Perceptual and Cognitive Development illustrates how the developmental approach yields fundamental contributions to our understanding of perception and cognition as a whole. The book discusses how to relate developmental, comparative, and neurological considerations to early learning and development, and it presents fundamental problems in cognition and language, such as the acquisition of a coherent, organized, and shared understanding of concepts and language. Discussions of learning, memory, attention, and problem solving are embedded within specific accounts of the neurological status of developing minds and the nature of knowledge. Research advances and theoretical reorientations are updated in the Second Edition; the revision focuses more attention on the cognitive and biological sciences and neuroscience Illustrates how the developmental approach can yield fundamental contributions to our understanding of perception and cognition as a whole Discussions of learning, memory, and attention permeate individual chapters

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

This volume describes research and theory concerning the cognitive neuroscience of attention. Filling a key gap, it emphasizes developmental changes that occur in the brain-attention relationship in infants, children, and throughout the lifespan and reviews the literature on attention, development, and underlying neural systems in a comprehensive manner. Special features include: * a new model of the neural control of eye movements; * a developmental perspective on the burgeoning literature on the cognitive neuroscience of attention; * the integration of ideas, research, and theories across chapters within each section via summary and commentary essays; and * a summary of the most recent work in the developmental cognitive neuroscience of attention by several of the leading researchers in this field.

1. Introduction. 2. Constructs and Measures. 3. Looking and Visual Attention: Overview and Developmental Framework. 4. Scanning, Searching, and Shifting Attention. 5. Development of Selectivity. 6. Development of Attention as a State. 7. Focused Visual Attention and Resistance to Distraction. 8. Increasing Independence in the Control of Attention. 9. Attention in Learning and Performance. 10. Individual Differences in Attention. 11. Early Manifestations of Attention Deficits. 12. Individuality and Development. 13. Recapitulation. References. Author Index. Subject Index

Cognitive Development in Digital Contexts investigates the impact of screen media on key aspects of children and adolescents’ cognitive development. Highlighting how screen media impact cognitive development, the book addresses a topic often neglected amid societal concerns about pathological media use and vulnerability to media effects, such as aggression, cyber-bullying and Internet addiction. It addresses children and adolescents’ cognitive development involving their interactions with parents, early language development, imaginary play, attention, memory, and executive control, literacy and academic performance. Covers the impact of digital from both theoretical and practical perspectives Investigates effects of digital media on attention, memory, language and executive functioning Examines video games, texting, and virtual reality as contexts for learning Explores parent-child interactions around media Considers the development of effective educational media Addresses media literacy and critical thinking about media Considers social policy for increasing access to high quality education media and the Internet Provides guidance for parents on navigating children’s technology usage