Understanding cognitive
brain development is the key to better understanding how children learn. Learning
neurological pathways involved in cognitive development can give us further insight
as to how our brains develop and learn new skills.
When it comes to
cognitive development of children development is progressive and skills are at
their peak once adulthood is reached. It
is perceived that this gives adults an advantage when it comes to performing
tasks. In Psychological Science an
article titled “Costs of Selective
Attention: When Children Notice What Adults Miss” by Daniel Plebanek
where the attention toward detail and the ability to recall these details are
being studied in adults compared to children.
When it comes to remembering the details of information
presented, researchers have found a deviance to this perceived notion. In 4 and 5 year olds it was found that they
focus on all details in information presented even when asked to focus on a
particular detail. Although adults were
found to be better at recalling details when asked to focus on a specific
detail compared to the children, researchers discovered that the children were
able to recall other details found they were not asked to focus on better than
the adults. This lack of ability to
focus that young children seem to have alternately gives them an advantage when
it comes to recalling details overall.
The experiment was
conducted with 35 adults and 34 children ages 4 to 5 years old. They were asked to look at a computer screen
where two shapes were displayed one green and one red. The participant was asked to pay attention to
a particular color shape, the “target” shape, then the shape would disappear
from the screen and a new shape would appear. They would have to determine if
the target shape was the same or different from the new shape. Adults outperformed the children when asked
to recall the target shape 94 percent of the time compared to 86 percent of the
time with children as expected. When
asked to recall the change in the non-target shape children outperformed
recognizing the change 77 percent of the time compared to 63 percent in the
adults. As it seems because children are
less developed when it comes to focus this allows them to take in more detail
and remember more.
In a second experiment
adults and children were shown an artificial character and were asked to focus
on a specific detail about the character such as an “X” or an “O” on the body. When asked to recall that detail adults and children
alike were equal in remembering the detail.
When asked to recall a second detail they were not asked to remember
children were remarkably more accurate than adults with children being accurate
72 percent of the time compared to 59 percent accuracy for adults.
This gives us insight to
how children learn and develop motor abilities and skills such as lettering writing. In a talk presented at Loyola University
Chicago by Sophia Vinci-Booher discussing her research in article ““Neural
Substrates of Sensorimotor Processes: Letter Writing and Letter Perception.”
and what areas of the brain that are activated during letter perception and
writing. In her study she examined young
children, literate children, and literate adults. Areas of the brain such as
the left dorsal premotor and supplementary motor areas were activated with
letter writing. Visual processing
regions such as the bilateral fusiform gyrus were found to be active as well as
parietal regions such as the bilateral superior parietal lobe. Younger
children, which are similar in age to the children in the first study, were
found to have increased neurological response to variability. Literate children have an increased
neurological response to letter category and adults had an increased
neurological response to letter category and one’s own handwriting. The fact that younger children are more open
to detail as a result of lack of ability to focus could give further insight of
the ideology behind the difference found in the letter processing study between
the adults and the children. The
difference in the activation in different brain areas and difference in
response in children compared to adults could be a result of the children’s
ability to focus. The fact that children
are noticing everything compared to the adults who are able to focus their
attention can give us further insight as to how our brain processes letter
perception overtime as our brain develops and as we become literate. Further research in these areas could improve
our overall methods on how we teach children how to read or even assist in developing
learning strategies for children with conditions such as ADHD.
Works Cited
Plebanek, Daniel J., and Vladimir M. Sloutsky. “Costs
of Selective Attention: When Children Notice What Adults Miss.” Psychological
Science, vol. 28, no. 6, July 2017, pp. 723–732., doi:10.1177/0956797617693005.
Vinci-Booher, Sophia A., and Karin H. James. “Neural
Substrates of Sensorimotor Processes: Letter Writing and Letter Perception.”
Journal of Neurophysiology, vol. 115, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–4.,
doi:10.1152/jn.01042.2014.
Children Notice Information That Adults Miss
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/children-pay-attention-to-information-adults-miss.html
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