Data from: Visual environment, attention allocation, and learning in young children: when too much of a good thing may be bad

A large body of evidence supports the importance of focused attention for encoding and task performance. Yet young children with immature regulation of focused attention are often placed in elementary-school classrooms containing many displays that are not relevant to ongoing instruction. We investigated whether such displays can affect children’s ability to maintain focused attention during instruction and to learn the lesson content. We placed kindergarten children in a laboratory classroom for six introductory science lessons, and we experimentally manipulated the visual environment in the classroom. Children were more distracted by the visual environment, spent more time off task, and demonstrated smaller learning gains when the walls were highly decorated than when the decorations were removed.

大量研究证据已然证实，专注注意力对于信息编码与任务表现具有关键意义。然而专注注意力调控能力尚未成熟的幼儿，往往身处存在大量与当前教学无关展示陈设的小学课堂之中。本研究针对这类无关展示是否会影响儿童在教学过程中维持专注注意力以及掌握课程内容的能力展开了探究。我们将幼儿园儿童安置于实验室模拟课堂，开展六节入门科学课程，并通过实验手段操控该课堂的视觉环境。相较于移除装饰的情境，当教室墙面装饰繁复时，儿童更易受到视觉环境的干扰，脱离任务状态的时长显著增加，且学习收获也相对更少。