When visual stimulation of the surrounding environment affects children's cognitive performance.

Autor: Rodrigues PFS; Center for Health Technology and Services Research (CINTESIS.UA), Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal; Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Life Sciences (IBILI), University of Coimbra, Azinhaga Santa Comba, Celas, 3000-548 Coimbra, Portugal. Electronic address: pedro.filipe@ua.pt., Pandeirada JNS; Center for Health Technology and Services Research (CINTESIS.UA), Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Journal of experimental child psychology [J Exp Child Psychol] 2018 Dec; Vol. 176, pp. 140-149. Date of Electronic Publication: 2018 Aug 24.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2018.07.014
Abstrakt: Visual distraction is widely studied in children, particularly in visuospatial cognitive tasks. In these studies, targets and distractors are usually shown in the same display (e.g., the computer screen). However, children are constantly exposed to visually enriched environments (e.g., elementary school classrooms), and little is known about their influence on children's cognition. Although the importance of the surrounding environment is well recognized in the literature, few experimental studies have explored this question. We propose an alternative paradigm to study visual distraction in children that brings together the rigor of experimental psychology and more ecological validity on the exposure to potential environmental distractors. Our study was designed to investigate whether a high-load versus low-load visual surrounding environment influences children's cognitive performance as evaluated by four different cognitive tasks. A sample of 64 children (aged 8-12 years) completed two sessions in two environmental conditions: a high-load visual surrounding environment and a low-load environment. In each session, they performed visuospatial attention and memory tasks. Overall, the results suggested that the high-load visual environment affected children's cognitive performance given that children performed better in the low-load visual environment (e.g., higher percentage of hits, higher Corsi span). Understanding the impact that a visually rich surrounding environment has on children's cognitive processes that support more complex ones is important to support recommendations on how the environment should be organized to foster better daily activities.
(Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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