ERIC Number: EJ850155
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2006-May
Pages: 6
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1363-755X
EISSN: N/A
The Effect of Divided Attention on Inhibiting the Gravity Error
Hood, Bruce M.; Wilson, Alice; Dyson, Sally
Developmental Science, v9 n3 p303-308 May 2006
Children who could overcome the gravity error on Hood's (1995) tubes task were tested in a condition where they had to monitor two falling balls. This condition significantly impaired search performance with the majority of mistakes being gravity errors. In a second experiment, the effect of monitoring two balls was compared in the tubes task and a spatial transposition task not involving gravity. Again, monitoring two objects produced impaired search performance in the gravity task but not in the spatial transposition task. These findings support the view that divided attention disrupts the ability to exercise inhibitory control over the gravity error and that the performance drop on this task is not due to the additional task demands incurred by divided attention.
Descriptors: Attention, Inhibition, Physics, Scientific Concepts, Children, Experiments, Spatial Ability
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A