The ability to maintain items of information within working memory is depending on the ability to allocate attention to items within WM. Individual differences in WM capacity may bedependent on the amount of information that can be held and maintained in the focus of attention. A basic question in cognitive development is whether individuals increase the capacity of the focus of attention or the efficiency with which they can process information. We examined the differences in typically developing children versus adults in the capacity and efficiency of attention control. In our study, children and young adults completed a dichotic attention switching task and their accuracy and response time was measured. Children’s accuracy on the attention switch tasks was not significantly different from adults’ accuracy. Children had significantly slower response time compared to the young adult group. The results of our study suggest that developmental changes in capacity of WM were not present for the task, but changes in processing speed and efficiency were critical cognitive mechanisms that influenced changes in inhibition from adolescence to adulthood. Our next step is to analyze neural processing data in order to assess developmental differences in the amount of cognitive energy required for both groups to perform these tasks
