Abstract
Adults excel at exerting top-down control to avoid distractions from salient-but-irrelevant stimuli, allowing them to produce the attentional boost effect (ABE) for target decision-making in dual-task processing. It is currently unclear whether ABE in preschool children (5–6 years old) is related to target decision-making or the red effect. Consequently, determining whether preschool children possess the top-down control ability necessary for target selection is impossible. To this end, the attention effect of target selection was measured using target detection and memory tasks. The target and red were separately set, and the target-to-distraction ratio was adjusted. The results indicated a stable target-induced ABE when the target was presented with a low-frequency distraction (1:5). However, the target-induced ABE disappeared, and the red-induced ABE appeared when the target and distraction were presented in the same ratio (1:1). These findings imply that preschool children possess some degree of top-down attention control, but are susceptible to target salience.
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Data availability
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation. The datasets are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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We thank all of the child participants for their willingness to participate in the experiments, as well as all the reviewers who participated in the review.
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Ye, X., Meng, Y. The regulation of target salience on preschool children’s top-down attentional control. Curr Psychol 43, 15077–15090 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-05477-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-05477-1