Children aged 5 are better at switching their attention than chimps

In the task of switching between two sets of rules, 5-year-olds score high, while 4-year-olds and chimpanzees lag behind.

To Luke Taylor

By the age of five, children are better able to shift their attention from one rule to another than chimpanzees. The findings add evidence that unique cognitive changes occur before a human reaches the age of five.

Like memory and self-control, switching between “mental sets” of rules and instructions is a core cognitive skill that develops at an early age. It can adapt quickly to changes in the environment. For example, you can find alternative ways to reach your destination when your route is blocked by roadworks.

To compare the ability to alter attention in primates and humans of various ages, Eva Reindle and her colleagues at the University of St Andrews in the UK designed a series of tasks using reward-hiding cups. Did.

Children and chimpanzees were trained to determine which of four cups placed on two different shelves contained a reward. Stickers for children, bananas for chimpanzees. Sweets were placed in green cups on the green shelf, and pink cups were placed on the blue shelf.

When it was necessary to switch from one set of shelves to another, chimpanzees successfully selected the appropriate cup 52% ​​of the time. This compares with her 3-year-old, who had a 50% success rate, and her 4-year-old, who chose correctly in 59% of cases.

Five-year-olds had a much higher success rate of 80%.

This finding adds to previous research suggesting that older preschoolers are better at focusing on and switching between relevant stimuli.

Improvements in age-related tasks in children are likely due to biological changes, such as the development of the brain’s frontal lobe, says Reindl.

But cultural development can also play a role. Language may have helped older children switch between her two rules, much like adults memorize phone numbers and directions aloud.

Most of the mistakes made by children and chimpanzees were due to applying rules to the wrong set of shelves, but in chimpanzees 32% of the errors were random, compared to 4-year-old humans and chimpanzees. was 23%. 27% among 3-year-olds.

“Chimpanzees sometimes plucked [cups] It’s completely unrelated, suggesting they didn’t form such a strong attentional set in the first place,” says Reindl.

Prejudices such as children being tested by the same species make it difficult to compare humans to apes, but the general results of the study are solid, says Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. said Frans de Waal of

“It’s hard to dispute the conclusion that children as young as 5 outperform younger children and chimpanzees of various ages, including adults,” says de Waal.