An Event-related Potential Study of Selective Auditory Attention in Children and Adults

Coch, Donna; Sanders, Lisa D.; Neville, Helen J. · 2005 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1162/0898929053467631

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Summary

This study investigates the developmental trajectory of selective auditory attention by comparing event-related potentials (ERPs) in adults and 6- to 8-year-old children. While behavioral evidence indicates that selective attention skills develop throughout childhood, electrophysiological data regarding the neural mechanisms underlying this development in school-age children remain scarce. The researchers aimed to determine whether the attentional networks indexed by dichotic listening tasks are fully mature by age 8 or continue to develop, and whether these networks process linguistic and nonlinguistic stimuli differently. The experiment employed a dichotic listening paradigm where participants attended to one of two concurrent narratives while ignoring the other. ERPs were recorded in response to linguistic probes (the syllable /ba/) and nonlinguistic probes (a buzz) embedded in both attended and unattended narratives. The study included adult participants and a group of children aged 6 to 8 years, all of whom demonstrated normal behavioral performance on standardized tests of vocabulary and reading. In adults, the ERP waveforms exhibited the classic P1–N1–P2 component sequence. A typical attention effect was observed for both probe types: probes in the attended narrative elicited an enhanced negativity (N1) compared to unattended probes. This effect began approximately 100 milliseconds after stimulus onset. However, the attention effect for linguistic probes was more posteriorly distributed and lasted longer than that for nonlinguistic probes. Additionally, adults displayed left-lateralized attention effects specifically for linguistic stimuli, suggesting specialized neural processing for speech. In contrast, children’s ERP waveforms were morphologically dissimilar to those of adults. Instead of distinct P1–N1–P2 components, children exhibited a single, broad, sustained positivity beginning around 100 milliseconds. For both linguistic and nonlinguistic probes, children showed a greater positivity for attended stimuli compared to unattended ones. Unlike adults, children did not display left-lateralized attention effects or distinct posterior distributions for linguistic probes; their attention effects were similarly distributed across probe types and primarily anterior. The findings indicate that the neural systems supporting selective auditory attention continue to develop beyond age 8. The absence of adult-like ERP morphology, lateralization, and stimulus-specific distribution in children suggests that the maturation of attentional networks, particularly those specialized for linguistic processing, is not complete in early school-age years. These results highlight significant developmental differences in how the brain filters and processes attended versus unattended auditory information.

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• attention selective divided