Scientists have found that adults pay attention only to things that seem important to them at that moment, and children do not ignore anything.
This is the conclusion reached by researchers from Ohio State University. They conducted an experiment with adults and children between the ages of four and five. The results show that children tend to distribute their attention more widely, while adults use selective attention to focus on the information they feel is most important.
The study involved 34 adults and 36 children. Participants were presented with colorful computer graphics of alien creatures that had seven identifiable features, including antennae, head and tail. In addition, they were told that there are two types of creatures called flaps and jalets. The participants had to find out who is who.
Flups and jalets have always had a difference in every feature: for example, jalets could have a blue tail, and flups - orange. In addition, children and adults have been told that most (but not all) fluops have some type of trait, such as pink tendrils. One of the features was never mentioned in the instructions and did not differ between both types of creatures. This was what the researchers called a "nonessential feature."
After the training, the participants were shown a series of images of creatures on a computer screen and shown which of them is a flups and which is a jalet. But in the middle of the experiment, the researchers took an unexpected twist: a non-essential feature became a feature that would determine whether the creature was a flup or a jalet. This trait, which was the same for both creatures before the switch, was now different.
After the shift, adults were more confused than children: they were less likely to internalize the importance of the new function. By contrast, the kids quickly realized that the previously inappropriate characterization was now a feature that would always show the difference between flups and jalet. Adults tried to use probabilistic rules (for example, “most flups have pink antennae”) to make choices after changing the main feature.
As a result, most of the children made the right choice, which the adults failed to do. According to the author of the study, children of this age have problems focusing attention due to the immaturity of their prefrontal cortex, but this is what helps them better solve problems of this kind.
Nikita Shevtsov
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