To Stretch Their Attention: UO professor's exercises show possibility of

By Greg Bolt
The Register-Guard
Published: Saturday, October 8, 2005

Teachers may one day be able to train youngsters to pay better attention,and in a way they'll have space monkeys to thank for it.

But it was University of Oregon psychology professor Michael Posner who adapted exercises once used by NASA to train monkeys for space travel to show that young children can strengthen the attention centers of their brains. In recently published research with colleagues at Cornell University's medical school, he showed that attention improved after just a few training sessions.

The improvement was slight, but given the short period the children spent on the exercises Posner said it's clear that the therapy has potential.

"This is a feasible idea," he said. "I think we have shown pretty convincingly we can train attention in this way."

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http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/10/08/d1.cr.attention.1008.p1.php?section=cityregion

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