Attentional orienting involves two neuroanatomically and functionally separate components, the reflexive and voluntary attentional sub-systems, which interact to orient attention on the environment. Three experiments, in which a cueing paradigm was used, examined reflexive and voluntary orienting over later childhood development (i.e., 8--14 years old) in order to explore the mechanisms underlying the development of the control of attentional orienting. Experiments 1 and 2 explored whether reflexive and voluntary orienting develop in parallel, and examined the influence of cue predictability on attentional orienting during development. Experiment 3 explored the role of explicit instructions in the influence of cue predictability on voluntary and reflexive orienting. The results indicate that the development of attentional orienting over later childhood is a reflection of the operation of an underlying mechanism, general developmental changes in speed of processing. Apart from this mechanism, the efficiency of attentional orienting remains the same across age. In addition, the influence of cue predictability on attentional orienting reflects the operation of a low-level mechanism which operates independently of strategic influences; this mechanism may be covariance detection and judgment. The implications of these conclusions for modeling attentional orienting, and the development thereof, are considered.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.37529 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Hayduk, Steven J. |
| Contributors | Bruck, M. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Psychology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001641682, proquestno: NQ46513, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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