Attention & Online Learning
Children learn in environments full of competing sights and sounds. Our work looks at how attention helps them stay focused on what’s important and supports learning in real-world settings.
Children learn in environments full of competing sights and sounds. Our work looks at how attention helps them stay focused on what’s important and supports learning in real-world settings.
When do distractions help kids learn?
Ages: 3-10 years old
Sometimes extra information helps learning, and sometimes it gets in the way. This work shows that it depends on how well children can control their attention and what the extra information is about. When kids focus on details that relate to the goal, learning outcomes can actually improve. However, unrelated, task-irrelevant information can make learning harder. The main takeaway from this work is that competing information in a child's learning environment is important, because if it is task-relevant, it can actually support learning in children with developing attention control skills.
When do distractions help kids learn?
Ages: Elementary school children
Sometimes extra information helps learning, and sometimes it gets in the way. This work shows that it depends on how well children can control their attention and what the extra information is about. When kids focus on details that relate to the goal, learning can actually improve. However, unrelated distractions make learning harder. The takeaway: good learning environments aren’t just quiet — they help children notice important information.
Do kids learn from information they weren’t told to look at?
Ages: 4-8 years old
Children often notice more than the target they’re searching for. In this study, kids remembered objects better when they appeared around the target, but only if they naturally kept exploring after finding it. Children with stronger attention skills gathered more useful information from the scene, through incidental learning from relevant non-targets.
Do kids learn from information they weren’t told to look at?
Ages: 4-8 years old
Children often notice more than the target they’re searching for. In this study, kids remembered objects better when they appeared around the target — but only if they naturally kept exploring after finding it. Children with stronger attention skills gathered more useful information from the scene. Learning here wasn’t accidental — it depended on how they chose to look around.
Can more distraction improve memory?
Ages: Adults
Previous work has demonstrated that increasing distractor number can help selectively attend to a target. However, it is not well-understood how this influences learning. This study found that people experience greater interference from conceptual distraction when a single distractor is present, and this distraction impairs learning and memory. Environments flooded with visual noise may be more difficult to detect a target in when the target is presented alongside only one distractor, but in a more cluttered environment, finding this target may be beneficial for learning.
Can more distraction improve memory?
Ages: School-age children
Not all distraction is bad. When extra items are meaningful, children remember more later on. When extra information is irrelevant, memory suffered. This study shows that the brain doesn’t simply block distractions… it evaluates them. Whether kids learn depends on how attention filters what’s worth keeping.
Cueing attention during video lessons
Ages: 3-5 year olds
In this study, children viewed four short science lessons on a computer screen while images related to science also appeared on the screen. Some of the surrounding images were especially bright and colorful to capture children’s attention. Children answered multiple choice questions about the lessons via the computer before and after the lessons to assess learning of the lesson material. A non-invasive eye tracker was used to record where each child looked as they view lessons and answers questions. A publication for this study will be coming soon!
Learning from context during video lessons
Ages: 3-5 year olds
In this study, 3-5 year-old children viewed four short science lessons on a computer screen while images related to science also appeared on the screen. A high-tech eye tracking camera was used to record children’s looking as they viewed the lessons and children answered questions before and after the lessons to assess their learning of lesson content.
Learning from context during video lessons
Ages: 3-5 year olds
In this study, 3-5 year-old children viewed four short science lessons on a computer screen while images related to science also appeared on the screen. We used an eye tracker to record children’s looking as they viewed the lessons and children answered questions before and after the lessons to assess their learning of lesson content.
Relevant Context & Learning
Ages: 4-8 years old
In this study, we examined how children’s attention skills support learning from relevant information in the environment. We asked 4-8 year-old children to play three computer games in which they were asked to search for and remember food images that appeared on a computer screen. We then used an eye tracker to record children’s looking as they viewed the images. We found that children’s recognition memory depended on individual differences in selective attention and time spent scanning the relevant non-targets.
Relevant Context & Learning
Ages: 7-8 years old
In this study, we examined how children’s attention skills support learning from relevant information in the environment. We asked 7-8 year-old children to play three computer games in which they were asked to search for and remember food images that appeared on a computer screen. We then used an eye tracker to record children’s looking as they viewed the images.
