Variability of Head Motion Reveals Development of Spatial Attention
- 1University of Luebeck
Abstract
Selective attention, the ability to focus on relevant information while ignoring task-irrelevant information, is crucial for learning. Selective attention has largely been studied in motionless individuals. However, body movements are intrinsic to cognition and particularly frequent in children. To test whether movements explain successful attention control throughout childhood, we tracked head rotations while younger children (6-8 years, n = 25), older children (9-10 years, n = 20) and adults (18-30 years; n = 21) identified a spatial target sound under distraction. Distractor reports decreased with age, confirming a developmental increase in attention control. Importantly, a dissociation of two distinct types of movement emerged: Task-dependent head rotation to lateral targets was similar across age groups. Contrary, task-independent movements before and early during a trial decreased with age and predicted attention accuracy. Thus, movements unrelated to the attention goal do not reflect noise but signify attentional control across development.
Related
- Impact of motion correction on reproducibility and spatial variability of quantitative myocardial T2 mapping
- Linking anterior cingulate sulcal variability to attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder behavior
- Menstrual cycle and hormonal contraceptive intake alter the electrophysiological signature of selective auditory spatial attention
- VAD-EmotionNet: a spatial-spectral attention network for EEG emotion recognition in the 3D affective space
- Machine learning-assisted Repli-Histo labeling reveals distinct transcription-dependent constraints on chromatin motion in living cells
BibTeX
@misc{woestmann2026variability,
title = {{Variability of Head Motion Reveals Development of Spatial Attention}},
author = {M. Woestmann and D. Kunke and N. Wetzel},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.23.753739},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.23.753739v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Variability of Head Motion Reveals Development of Spatial Attention
AU - M. Woestmann
AU - D. Kunke
AU - N. Wetzel
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/23
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.23.753739
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.23.753739v1
AB - Selective attention, the ability to focus on relevant information while ignoring task-irrelevant information, is crucial for learning. Selective attention has largely been studied in motionless individuals. However, body movements are intrinsic to cognition and particularly frequent in children. To test whether movements explain successful attention control throughout childhood, we tracked head rotations while younger children (6-8 years, n = 25), older children (9-10 years, n = 20) and adults (18-30 years; n = 21) identified a spatial target sound under distraction. Distractor reports decreased with age, confirming a developmental increase in attention control. Importantly, a dissociation of two distinct types of movement emerged: Task-dependent head rotation to lateral targets was similar across age groups. Contrary, task-independent movements before and early during a trial decreased with age and predicted attention accuracy. Thus, movements unrelated to the attention goal do not reflect noise but signify attentional control across development.
ER -