Training Attentional Control in Infancy

Several recent studies have reported that cognitive training in adults does not lead to generalized performance improvements [1Owen A.M. Hampshire A. Grahn J.A. Stenton R. Dajani S. Burns A.S. Howard R.J. Ballard C.G. Putting brain training to the test.Nature. 2010; 465: 775-778Crossref PubMed Scopus (760) Google Scholar, 2Dahlin E. Nyberg L. Bäckman L. Neely A.S. Plasticity of executive functioning in young and older adults: Immediate training gains, transfer, and long-term maintenance.Psychol. Aging. 2008; 23: 720-730Crossref PubMed Scopus (319) Google Scholar], whereas many studies with younger participants (children 4 years and older) have reported distal transfer [3Rueda M.R. Rothbart M.K. McCandliss B.D. Saccomanno L. Posner M.I. Training, maturation, and genetic influences on the development of executive attention.Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 2005; 102: 14931-14936Crossref PubMed Scopus (740) Google Scholar, 4Thorell L.B. Lindqvist S. Bergman Nutley S. Bohlin G. Klingberg T. Training and transfer effects of executive functions in preschool children.Dev. Sci. 2009; 12: 106-113Crossref PubMed Scopus (657) Google Scholar]. This is consistent with convergent evidence [5Stiles J. Reilly J. Paul B. Moses P. Cognitive development following early brain injury: Evidence for neural adaptation.Trends Cogn. Sci. (Regul. Ed.). 2005; 9: 136-143Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (115) Google Scholar, 6Huttenlocher P. Neural Plasticity: The Effects of Environment on the Development of Cerebral Cortex. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA2002Crossref Google Scholar, 7Thomas M.S.C. Johnson M.H. The computational modeling of sensitive periods.Dev. Psychobiol. 2006; 48: 337-344Crossref PubMed Scopus (20) Google Scholar, 8Heckman J.J. Skill formation and the economics of investing in disadvantaged children.Science. 2006; 312: 1900-1902Crossref PubMed Scopus (1917) Google Scholar] for greater neural and behavioral plasticity earlier in development. We used gaze-contingent paradigms to train 11-month-old infants on a battery of attentional control tasks. Relative to an active control group, and following only a relatively short training period, posttraining assessments revealed improvements in cognitive control and sustained attention, reduced saccadic reaction times, and reduced latencies to disengage visual attention. Trend changes were also observed in spontaneous looking behavior during free play, but no change was found in working memory. The amount of training correlated with the degree of improvement on some measures. These findings are to our knowledge the first demonstration of distal transfer following attentional control training in infancy. Given the longitudinal relationships identified between early attentional control and learning in academic settings [9Razza R.A. Martin A. Brooks-Gunn J. Associations among family environment, sustained attention, and school readiness for low-income children.Dev. Psychol. 2010; 46: 1528-1542Crossref PubMed Scopus (81) Google Scholar, 10Welsh J.A. Nix R.L. Blair C. Bierman K.L. Nelson K.E. The development of cognitive skills and gains in academic school readiness for children from low-income families.J. Educ. Psychol. 2010; 102: 43-53Crossref PubMed Scopus (473) Google Scholar], and the causal role that impaired control of attention may play in disrupting learning in several disorders [11Cornish K. Scerif G. Karmiloff-Smith A. Tracing syndrome-specific trajectories of attention across the lifespan.Cortex. 2007; 43: 672-685Abstract Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (148) Google Scholar, 12Elsabbagh M. Volein A. Holmboe K. Tucker L. Csibra G. Baron-Cohen S. Bolton P. Charman T. Baird G. Johnson M.H. Visual orienting in the early broader autism phenotype: Disengagement and facilitation.J. Child Psychol. Psychiatry. 2009; 50: 637-642Crossref PubMed Scopus (180) Google Scholar, 13Cornish K. Sudhalter V. Turk J. Attention and language in fragile X.Ment. Retard. Dev. Disabil. Res. Rev. 2004; 10: 11-16Crossref PubMed Scopus (118) Google Scholar, 14Karmiloff-Smith A. Development itself is the key to understanding developmental disorders.Trends Cogn. Sci. (Regul. Ed.). 1998; 2: 389-398Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (853) Google Scholar], the current results open a number of avenues for future work.