Nonverbal spatially selective attention in 4- and 5-year-old children

Abstract

Under some conditions 4- and 5-year-old children can differentially process sounds from attended and unattended locations. In fact, the latency of spatially selective attention effects on auditory processing as measured with event-related potentials (ERPs) is quite similar in young children and adults. However, it is not clear if developmental differences in the polarity, distribution, and duration of attention effects are best attributed to acoustic characteristics, availability of non-spatial attention cues, task demands, or domain. In the current study adults and children were instructed to attend to one of two simultaneously presented soundscapes (e.g., city sounds or night sounds) to detect targets (e.g., car horn or owl hoot) in the attended channel only. Probes presented from the same location as the attended soundscape elicited a larger negativity by 80 ms after onset in both adults and children. This initial negative difference (Nd) was followed by a larger positivity for attended probes in adults and another negativity for attended probes in children. The results indicate that the neural systems by which attention modulates early auditory processing are available for young children even when presented with nonverbal sounds. They also suggest important interactions between attention, acoustic characteristics, and maturity on auditory evoked potentials.

Auditory attention in childhood and adolescence: An event-related potential study of spatial selective attention to one of two simultaneous stories

“…Future studies that include a broader variety of probe types, such as environmental sounds (i.e. Sanders and Zobel, 2012 ), different phonemes, or words as probes, could elucidate the parameters that affect the morphology of auditory ERPs and how they develop.…”

EEG signatures of cognitive and social development of preschool children–a systematic review

“…Children had to selectively attend to the stimulus from one channel and inhibit their attention from the other. Studies with 5-yr old children showed a broad positivity across all electrode sites that peaked around 100ms after stimulus onset, rather than the positive-negative-positive (P1-N1 complex) ERP waveform characteristic of adults [ 65 , 67 , 69 ], which does not emerge until early adolescence [ 69 ]. While pre-schoolers did not have the ability to differentially attend to stories played in two channels [ 68 ], they could selectively attend to environmental sounds [ 67 ] as evidenced by the absence [ 68 ] and presence [ 67 ] of a negative oscillation in the ERP waveform respectively.…”

“…This finding is unsurprising considering that research has consistently shown significant frontal activation during EF tasks in typically developing infants and children [ 100 – 102 ]. In three ERP studies on 3.5–5 year olds investigating selective attention using auditory tasks, a broad positivity has been observed 100ms post stimulus presentation as opposed to the distinct P1-N1 complex which is routinely seen in adults [ 65 , 67 , 69 ].…”

The prospects of brain — computer interface applications in children

“…In this area, Egeth [11] described the concept of the BCIs' application in locked-in children and adults based on previous research on auditory attention in children by Gomez et al [12] and Sanders et al [13]. Further studies in the area of auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) in 4-and 5-year-old children by Sanders et al [14] showed auditory processing quite similar in young children and adults. These findings may constitute promise towards further use of auditory ERPs in ERP-based BCIs in the youngest children with neurological disorders.…”