Varieties of Attention in Infancy

This chapter summarizes over twenty years of research on the development of attention in human infants. It begins by briefly tracing the history of consideration of attention as a construct in the developmental literature; it has been evident for some time that a multicomponent conceptualization of this cognitive function is necessary. Using the development and evolution of a research program conducted in Kansas over the past twenty-five years as a basis, it reviews the development of attention from the multicomponent perspective. Such an examination requires a discussion of the neural basis of these processes, and shows the inexorable movement of the field toward cognitive neuroscience. The chapter concludes with a discussion of some future questions for the study of attention in infancy and early childhood.