Effect of Surrounding Environment on Children’s Cognition

This study examined the influence of the surrounding environment on children’s cognition.

Key findings include: 

- They performed visuospatial cognitive tasks in two environment conditions.

- The visual surrounding environment was manipulated: high- vs. low-load environment.

- Children’s cognitive performance was reduced in the high-load visual environment.

Overall, the results suggested that the high-load visual environment affected children’s cognitive performance given that children performed better in the low-load visual environment. Understanding the impact that a visually rich surrounding environment has on children’s cognitive processes that support more complex ones is important to support recommendations on how the environment should be organized to foster better daily activities.

Rodrigues, P. F. S., & Pandeirada, J. N. S. (2018). When visual stimulation of the surrounding environment affects children’s cognitive performance. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 176, 140-149. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2018.07.014