This research will use a method that has been developed to permit the direct observation of a child's strategies of attention. Children select which information to look at by deciding which small doors covering drawings to open. For example, when there are 12 doors covering 12 drawings, and the locations of only 6 of the drawings are to be memorized, the most efficient strategy is to open only the 6 relevant doors. Preschoolers have trouble ignoring irrelevant information. They tend to open all the doors and thus recall poorly. Three developmental steps are predicted. First, children either do not use a strategy or use an inappropriate strategy. Second, they use an appropriate strategy, but it does not help them learn. Third, they use an appropriate strategy, and it helps them. Much of the research will examine whether the second step is caused by the considerable effort required for a young child to use the strategy. That is, if children must put a great deal of effort into deciding which strategy to use, actually carrying out the strategy, and monitoring whether they are using it correctly, they may not have enough mental capacity left to rehearse verbally or concentrate on the information to which they have attended. One way the research will test the effort hypothesis is by essentially eliminating the effort of producing the appropriate strategy by having the experimenter produce it (i.e., open the relevant doors for the child). Children who usually can produce the strategy but are not helped by it (stage 2 above) should now be able to recall the relevant items well, because the needed mental capacity is freed by the experimenter's help. A second way to test the effort hypothesis will take the opposite approach: Increasing effort, by adding a second task to be performed simultaneously, should cause a deterioration in the use of a strategy. Children who normally produce, and are helped by, the strategy should no longer be helped by the strategy. These two approaches will clarify the causes of, and ways to eliminate, the poor use of attentional strategies in young children which often results in learning or behavior problems.
