ABSTRACT
The preceding three chapters are rich in the amount of data presented and in the discussion of methods for studying attention. They also offer the reader some intriguing ideas about the cognitive and neural processes that underlie attention. The challenge for me has been to integrate three very different approaches to the issue of visual selective attention. The approaches differ in both the techniques used and the age range being investigated, and yet they all contribute to our understanding of a number of key issues. These issues are: the conceptualization of selective attention; the role of attention in performance, learning, and memory; and the course of development of attention, or to borrow a phrase from Enns, Brodeur, and Trick, “What develops?”
