Adults show greater visual search accuracy than young children¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r2 · q3 · i3 large
Currency · newest study 2017 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i3 Both age groups performed the search task above chance, but adults were more accurate at finding the target feature than children. → Plebanek 2017

Evidence¶

Plebanek 2017¶

Plebanek, D. J., & Sloutsky, V. M. (2017). Costs of Selective Attention: When Children Notice what Adults Miss. Psychological Science, 28(6), 723-732. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617693005

q3 · i3 · causal · r2

Visual search accuracy in Experiment 2: both groups exceeded chance (children 75%, adults 89.2%), and "adults were unsurprisingly better at finding the target feature" (d = .9). This is the benefit side of mature selective attention.

"While performance in both age groups was high (75% in children and 89.2% in adults, both above chance of 16.6%, ps < .001, ds > 6.47), adults were unsurprisingly better at finding the target feature, t(56) = 3.37, p = .001, d = .9, 95% CI [.062, .241]"

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• In a visual search task, children recognize search-irrelevant features better than adults while relevant-feature recognition is comparable — related
• In a change detection task, adults outperform 4-to-5-year-olds on cued shapes while children outperform adults on uncued shapes — related
• Older adults show performance decrements in divided-attention visual localization tasks, exacerbated by distractors and greater eccentricity, despite intact central-task performance — related