Intensity of digital experience and age peculiarities of cognitive processes

Abstract

The problem of information technologies impact on organization of cognitive processes in people of different age is examined. It is noted that the lack of specialized techniques for studying the information technologies impact on cognitive processes limits possibilities of psychological study as well as social practice of education. The study design was developed for testing hypothesis of differences in perceptual (visual perception) and cognitive (visual information processing) processes in subjects with different digital experience. An important feature of this design lies in the fact that information was presented in different forms (digital and a hard-copy) with different degrees of structuredness. Russian schoolchildren (teenagers), students and adults (research workers) took part in the experiment (a total of 86 subjects). The obtained results support the following: age differences in temporary characteristics and the volume of visual perception; age differences in interpretation of uncertain and complexly organized visual stimulation; lack of relationships between digital experience intensity and information preferences in groups of students and adults, on the one hand, and quantitative and qualitative parameters of perceptual and cognitive processes, on the other hand.