Abstract: In the present study global precedence was investigated in children. Navon' s hierarchical pattern stimuli and intervene paradigm were used to test 4～6-year-old children. The relationship between global and local feature in the hierarchical pattern included consistent, irrelevant and conflict. For every subject, there were 3 sessions including free attention, attention to global feature and attention to local feature. The free attention experiment was to find out if the ability children form their strategies spontaneously reacted according to the global feature or local feature developed by age. The result showed that most of the subjects formed the strategy of reacting according to the global feature, and the rate increased as age increased. In different ages, children' s correct reactions in global and local attention conditions were compared. Interference effect between global and local processing showed the tendency cf interaction to independence to global precedence. The results suggested that children' s selective attention to global feature might develop as they grew older and had more visual experiences.

Key words: hierarchical pattern, global/local feature precedence, global/local feature interference, children