engleski

Age and gender-related differences in two chronometric measures of divided attention in children between the ages of 8 and 17

Divided attention is one of the several major attention functions, which, in addition to selective attention, represents the keen control mechanism for all other human cognitive processes. Despite its importance, divided attention has often been neglected in research, partly due to high measurement demands in any statistically relevant sample, and partly due to questionable psychometric characteristics of divided attention operationalization. The age differences of divided attention have been even less investigated. The aim of this cross-sectional developmental research was to describe changes of divided attention in children between the ages of 8 and 17 by using chronometric measures of that construct. A special emphasis was put on the possible gender effect on two visuo-motorical measures of divided attention (Psychological Refractory Period and its modification) and its interaction with age. The total of 449 participants (226 male, and 223 female) were tested using the MID-KOGTESTER1 instrument (computerized battery of cognitive tests). All the participants were healthy, right handed school children. The results showed that divided attention is becoming increasingly better between the age of 8 and 17, but no statistically significant increment between successive age groups has been found. The developmental trend of divided attention was found to be nonlinear and possible developmental curves were discussed. No gender and interaction effects with age were found. Additionally, developmental decrement of variability measures and number of errors were found and discussed in relation relevant to developmental research. All the results were discussed in relation to contemporary theories of cognitive development and used to comment the construct validity of divided attention.

divided attention

nije evidentirano