Factors influencing involuntary attention during childhood and adulthood

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Nicole Wetzel
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2011 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 208957019

New and unexpected events, particularly sounds, occurring outside of the current focus of attention (distractors) can involuntarily capture attention and can cause impaired performance of a task at hand. The distraction of attention is based on partly automatically operating detection, orienting, and evaluation mechanisms. The present renewal proposal aims to continue the project: Processing of new distractors depending on their information content in children and adults. Results of the completed project revealed that processes underlying the distraction of attention are not yet matured until late childhood. Moreover, it was demonstrated that the non-verbal information content of task-irrelevant distractor sounds affects performance of a task at hand. Importantly, results indicate children's increased susceptibility to informative distractor sounds in relation to adults. Based on these findings the renewal proposal aims to investigate effects of distractors' meaning and emotional content on involuntary attention mechanisms and on primary task performance. Moreover, the project focuses on effects of interest in a task and on effects of mood on the distraction of attention. Results will be discussed in the framework of a three-stage model of involuntary attention. The proposed studies mainly include primary school-age children and young adults but will also include children aged one to six years. The distractor-related cortical brain activity will be measured using electroencephalogram and will be related to further psychophysiological (pupil size) and behavioral measurements. It is assumed that motivational and emotional context factors as well as the information content of distractors, and thereby their motivational significance, increasingly affect attention mechanisms the more immature they are. This project significantly contributes to an enhanced understanding of involuntary attention mechanisms and their development during childhood. Knowledge about the age dependent different processing of informative but task-irrelevant distractors and the increased influence of motivational and emotional context factors in children relative to adults, can in particular be used to optimize learning environments and task structures. This results in more optimized conditions for development during childhood. Furthermore, enhanced knowledge on involuntary attention might contribute to research in the context of mental disorders.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants