Mental attention: Reaction time and Accuracy scores to color matching task and number matching task

We adopt a constructivist neo-Piagetian theory of cognitive development to model paradigmatically and investigate how participants’ executive processes, indexed by latency during correct performance, are functionally affected by their mental-attentional capacity. This capacity or mental-attentional power is a maturational component of working memory, estimated with tasks that parametrically vary the levels of mental-attentional demand.

Participants (N = 257 children, 7-16 years old, and N = 226 adults, 19-30 years old) completed three tasks: two colour-matching tasks (CMTs) and one number-matching task (NMT). Results demonstrated a significant interaction between effects due to mental-attentional demand, interference level, and executive power. With growing age latencies change from ages 13 to 15 or greater, and remain stable for tasks with a mental-attentional demand beyond 6, suggesting that in simple tasks executive power functions independently from task difficulty.