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Abstract Visual attention both guides and is guided by learning and memory systems. In this article, we use a multiple‐memory systems framework to examine the interplay between attention and memory that begins in early postnatal life. We review how attention and memory interact to support infant development with respect to perceptual learning about objects and features, item‐in‐context spatial memory, and reinforcement and reward learning. We argue that the multiple‐memory systems approach offers a useful organizational structure for research on interactions between attention and memory. 

Abstract Attention control regulates efficient processing of goal‐relevant information by suppressing interference from irrelevant competing inputs while also flexibly allocating attention across relevant inputs according to task demands. Research has established that developing attention control skills promote effective learning by minimizing distractions from task‐irrelevant competing information. Additional research also suggests that competing contextual information can provide meaningful input for learning and should not always be ignored. Instead, attending to competing information that is relevant to task goals can facilitate and broaden the scope of children's learning. We review this past research examining effects of attending to task‐relevant and task‐irrelevant competing information on learning outcomes, focusing on relations between visual attention and learning in childhood. We then present a synthesis argument that complex interactions across learning goals, the contexts of learning environments and tasks, and developing attention control mechanisms will determine whether attending to competing information helps or hinders learning. This article is categorized under:Psychology > AttentionPsychology > LearningPsychology > Development and Aging 

Abstract We build on the existing biased competition view to argue that attention is anemergentproperty of neural computations within and across hierarchically embedded and structurally connected cortical pathways. Critically then, one must ask,what is attention emergent from? Within this framework, developmental changes in the quality of sensory input and feedforward‐feedback information flow shape the emergence and efficiency of attention. Several gradients of developing structural and functional cortical architecture across the caudal‐to‐rostral axis provide the substrate for attention to emerge. Neural activity within visual areas depends on neuronal density, receptive field size, tuning properties of neurons, and the location of and competition between features and objects in the visual field. These visual cortical properties highlight the information processing bottleneck attention needs to resolve. Recurrent feedforward and feedback connections convey sensory information through a series of steps at each level of the cortical hierarchy, integrating sensory information across the entire extent of the cortical hierarchy and linking sensory processing to higher‐order brain regions. Higher‐order regions concurrently provide input conveying behavioral context and goals. Thus, attention reflects the output of a series of complex biased competition neural computations that occur within and across hierarchically embedded cortical regions. Cortical development proceeds along the caudal‐to‐rostral axis, mirroring the flow in sensory information from caudal to rostral regions, and visual processing continues to develop into childhood. Examining both typical and atypical development will offer critical mechanistic insight not otherwise available in the adult stable state. This article is categorized under:Psychology > Attention 

Abstract Previous work has shown that infants as young as 8 months of age can use certain features of the environment, such as the shape or color of visual stimuli, as cues to organize simple inputs into hierarchical rule structures, a robust form of reinforcement learning that supports generalization of prior learning to new contexts. However, especially in cluttered naturalistic environments, there are an abundance of potential cues that can be used to structure learning into hierarchical rule structures. It is unclear how infants determine what features constitute a higher‐order context to organize inputs into hierarchical rule structures. Here, we examine whether 9‐month‐old infants are biased to use social stimuli, relative to non‐social stimuli, as a higher‐order context to organize learning of simple visuospatial inputs into hierarchical rule sets. Infants were presented with four face/color‐target location pairings, which could be learned most simply as individual associations. Alternatively, infants could use the faces or colorful backgrounds as a higher‐order context to organize the inputs into simpler color‐location or face‐location rules, respectively. Infants were then given a generalization test designed to probehowthey learned the initial pairings. The results indicated that infants appeared to use the faces as a higher‐order context to organize simpler color‐location rules, which then supported generalization of learning to new face contexts. These findings provide new evidence that infants are biased to organize reinforcement learning around social stimuli.