Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Attention is the gateway to learning and memory. Its basic components (alerting, orienting, focusing, shifting) are immature at birth and undergo significant improvement in the early months and years of life that can be seen in many tasks and behaviors. The improvements are related to maturation of the brain structures and chemicals that mediate attention and also to early experiences. An important attention function that emerges across infancy and early childhood is selectivity. Selective attention involves orienting toward a particular target, maintaining alertness and focus on it while taking in its information, and resisting the distraction from other competing targets. In the media-rich (e.g., background TV, music, video games) environment in which most infants and children live, this competition can be intense and the implications for learning and memory significant. In the proposed research program we will use video material to begin to address whether, how, and under what circumstances these media interfere with (or foster) developing attention processes during the natural learning opportunities afforded by play and social interactions. In studies with 12- 60-month-olds we will examine: the meaning (distraction or selection) of children's frequent looks to a video during play; the conditions under which video diminishes or enhances focused (or engaged) attention to toys; whether or not television has unique distractor properties; the effect of video distractors on learning and memory following an interaction with an adult; and the role of individual differences and experience in establishing stable patterns of attention to video. The results will advance the wider literature on the development of attention by illustrating how the component processes foster young children's adaptations in a ""multi-tasking"", electronic world. The work will inform parents and professionals who translate basic science into evidence-based practice and policy locally and nationally, as they try to resolve conflicting information about the impact of media on very young children. The program will provide interdisciplinary training opportunities for students in psychology, behavioral neuroscience, pediatrics, and education.