Categorization, the process of grouping distinguishable entities
into equivalence classes, is an essential component of human
cognition. Although it has been often argued that selective
attention is an important component of categorization, organism
with immature selective attention (such as human infants
or young children) exhibit the ability to learn categories. This
research addresses this apparent paradox by examining attention
allocation in the course of category learning across development.
Results suggest that while some young children are
able to attend selectively, adults more flexibly deploy selective
attention according to task demands.
