This study was designed to determine if: a) attentuation of irrelevant information on a selective attention task would result in increased selective attention, and b) a developmental increase in selective attention would be replicated with the use of a different procedure of data analysis than has been used previously. (Author/CS)

Twelve educable or trainable Ss, 14 to 22 years of age, who were institutionalized residents of a state school for the retarded, were examined in a simple vigilance test to determine effects of knowledge-of-results (KR) contingent upon correct responses. Each S in the KR group was instructed to press a switch upon seeing a light signal and to…

Conjugate reinforcement is a new attention measure which has emerged from experimental psychology. It can provide accurate measurement of a subject's attention to a stimulus. In conjugate reinforcement, the duration of the stimulus varies directly and immediately with the subject's rate of response. In this process, the subject must demonstrate…

Student behavior measures were shown to be highly predictive of achievement, adding support to the notion that student behavior during instruction is strongly linked to student learning. (Author)

Presents a proposed unifying relationship between instructional methods and cognitive operations, and argues that it is the location of the processing of the learning task that defines the function, type, and extent of the instructional method required. More than 50 references are listed. (MER)

The development of capacity for attention was assessed by giving children 5, 8, 9, and 12 years of age a component-selection task with instructions to attend to one component or another, or with no specific instructions regarding the stimuli. (CM)

This review surveys the empirical literature for assessments of learning problems in children from a neuropsychological perspective. An evaluation of children with learning problems must consider measures of working memory, attention, executive function, and comprehension (listening and written), particularly for children who do not respond to…

Thirty-six newborn infants were exposed to a visual stimulus until habituation was demonstrated; subjects were then presented with the same target or one of either moderate or large discrepancy from the standard stimulus. Following habituation, female infants displayed greater recovery of attention to moderate stimulus change. (SDH)

Recent theoretical analyses have implied that there may be age differences in children's tendency to exercise component selection, i.e., to attend selectively to a single component of stimulus objects in a learning situation. In the present study, 6 experiments were conducted, each designed to investigate developmental changes in component…

The effects of distraction on achievement are particularly important in relation to the acceptability of computer-assisted instructional materials. In addition to these effects, various levels of anxiety may also be deleterious to the learner. In order to measure the effects of both distraction and anxiety 121 subjects were used in a two-by-two…

This experiment examines extended learning over a 4-day period in infants exposed to responsive and unresponsive wooden mobiles. Frequency of kicks and attention to the mobile increased over the first three days and was found to vary with the introduction of a novel mobile on day four. (GO)

Lack of attentional control--inability to concentrate--has often made the difference between successful and unsuccessful performance on the part of athletes. Attention is controlled neurologically by a very complex interaction of a large portion of the cerebrum and is not localized to any one structure. The mechanism involves a memory retrieval…