Does the Optimal Attentional Spotlight Exist?

最佳注意力聚光灯存在吗？调查积极和消极分心之间的平衡，它对学习的影响，以及它与婴儿和幼儿ADHD症状的关系在发展过程中，我们学会利用嘈杂和分心的刺激，当它们与行为相关或有助于当前目标时（科尔贝塔，帕特尔，舒尔曼，2008）。例如，当我们坐在路边的咖啡馆里时，我们学会了忽略交通噪音，但当我们开车时却不是这样。它是怎么发生的？这种能力的早期个体间差异会影响进一步的发展和学习吗？这个项目挑战了分心作为一个负面因素和概念化的分心作为一个注意力特征的共同想法。换句话说，我们的目标是研究注意力分散是否可以被定义为一个连续体，其中极端-无论是对感官刺激的过度反应，还是无法检测和定位注意力到显着和信息刺激-对适应和学习同样有害，而中等水平是有益的。由于大脑和认知发展中心的幼儿实验室即将开放，该实验室的设计是为了支持最新的科学方法，我们现在可以把这个研究问题放在年轻人身上，研究早期个体间在注意力分散和持续注意力能力方面的差异是否与幼儿的学习技能和随后的学业成绩有关。后来的童年此外，我们将探讨注意力成分和注意力缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）症状之间的关系，以深入了解ADHD的早期行为和神经科学标志物。

Does the Optimal Attentional Spotlight Exist? Investigating the Balance Between Positive and Negative Distraction, its Effects on Learning, and its Relationship with ADHD symptoms in Infants and ToddlersDuring the course of development, we learn to take advantage of noisy and distracting stimuli when they are behaviourally relevant or contribute to the current goal (Corbetta, Patel, & Shulman, 2008). For instance, we learn to ignore traffic noise while we are sitting in cafe' near the street but not when we are driving. How does it happen? Do early interindividual differences in this ability impact further development and learning? This project challenges the common idea of distraction as a negative factor and conceptualised distraction as an attentional trait. In other words, we aim to study whether distractibility can be defined as a continuum in which extremes -either an over response to sensory stimulation or an inability to detect and orient attention towards salient and informative stimuli- are equally detrimental for adaptation and learning, while medium levels are beneficial. Thanks to the forthcoming opening of the Toddler Lab at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, which has been designed from the ground up to support the latest in scientific methodologies, we can now address this research question to young populations and study whether early interindividual differences in distractibility and in the ability to sustain attention over time are related to learning skills in toddlers and subsequent school achievement in later childhood. Furthermore, we will explore the relationship between attentional components and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms to gain insight into early behavioural and neuroscientific markers of ADHD.