Discrimination of single features and conjunctions by children
Stimuli that are discriminated by a conjunction of features can show more rapid early processing in adults. To determine how this facilitation effect develops, the processing of visual features and their conjunction was examined in 7–12-year-old children. The children completed a series of tasks in...
Gespeichert in:
Veröffentlicht in: | International journal of psychophysiology 2003-12, Vol.51 (1), p.85-95 |
---|---|
Hauptverfasser: | , , |
Format: | Artikel |
Sprache: | eng |
Schlagworte: | |
Online-Zugang: | Volltext |
Tags: |
Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
|
Zusammenfassung: | Stimuli that are discriminated by a conjunction of features can show more rapid early processing in adults. To determine how this facilitation effect develops, the processing of visual features and their conjunction was examined in 7–12-year-old children. The children completed a series of tasks in which they made a target–non-target judgement as a function of shape only, colour only or shape and colour features, while event-related potentials were recorded. To assess early stages of feature processing the posteriorly distributed P1 and N1 were analysed. Attentional effects were seen for both components. P1 had a shorter latency and P1 and N1 had larger amplitudes to targets than non-targets. Task effects were driven by the conjunction task. P1 amplitude was largest, while N1 amplitude was smallest for the conjunction targets. In contrast to larger left-sided N1 in adults, N1 had a symmetrical distribution in the children. N1 latency was shortest for the conjunction targets in the 9–10-year olds and 11–12-year olds, demonstrating facilitation in children, but which continued to develop over the pre-teen years. These data underline the sensitivity of early stages of processing to both top-down modulations and the parallel binding of non-spatial features in young children. Furthermore, facilitation effects, increased speed of processing when features need to be conjoined, mature in mid-childhood, arguing against a hierarchical model of visual processing, and supporting a rapid, integrated facilitative model. |
---|---|
ISSN: | 0167-8760 1872-7697 |
DOI: | 10.1016/S0167-8760(03)00155-7 |