Developmental trends for auditory selective attention: dependence on central-incidental word relations.

Using the central-incidental learning task, we examined central task scores and numbers of correctly recognized incidental words for 48 children each from the first, fourth, and seventh grades, and for 48 adults. Differences in developmental trends were observed for subjects who heard related pairs of central and incidental words (compound words), unrelated word pairs, and central words only (control condition). In experiment 2, when incidental words were rhymes or synonyms of central words, fourth graders performed as well as did adults in the central phase of the task. Also, fourth graders were as likely to recognize incidental words which had rhymed as those that had been synonyms of central words; adults recognized more synonyms than rhymes. The results of both experiments confirmed that researchers must assess the nature of the task demands, as well as differentiate between valiables affecting central versus incidental learning scores, in deriving estimates of selectivity.