Kids learn late to tackle data overload
Easy decision strategy not so simple for fourth graders
By Bruce Bower
Fourth graders flock to information like middle schoolers to a Justin Bieber concert.
At ages 9 and 10, kids often make decisions by trying to integrate lots of previously learned material, when focusing on one particularly useful cue would work better, say psychologist Rui Mata of the University of Basel in Switzerland and his colleagues.
That’s a surprising tendency, given 9- and 10-year-olds’ limited ability to keep more than one piece of information in mind. But it’s consistent with the idea that complex mental and neural operations unavailable until late childhood underlie simple but powerful decision strategies used by most adults (SN: 7/5/08, p. 22).