Selective attention: perception or response?
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Attention↗
Biomedical subjects
G Geffen
Publications and source records attributed to G Geffen.
Comparative effects of ageing and dementia of the Alzheimer type on orientation of visual attention.
Age-related changes and the effects of dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) were investigated during a visual orienting attention task in which attention was pre-cued to one or other hemifields. Central cues were either valid, neutral, invalid or NoGo (inhibitory). The response time cost-benefit analysis showed a decreased benefit after valid cueing in the old compared with the young group with no change in the cost of invalid cueing. The older group were also slower over all cue types. These results suggest there is an age-related reduced ability to covertly orient attention in a visual hemifield before target onset. In contrast, the DAT group showed an increased response time benefit and showed a trend for a decreased cost in response time compared with controls. This was due to slowest response times after neutral cues. They also made significantly more response errors particularly following neutral cueing, and were less able to inhibit responses on NoGo trials than controls. The increased benefit and reduced cost found in the DAT group was interpreted as an impairment in dividing attention between left and right target locations.
Adult↗
A comparison of cognitive impairments in dementia of the Alzheimer type and depression in the elderly.
General cognitive function and specific language and memory processing abilities were compared in dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT), depressed and normal control subjects. Several tests clearly differentiated between DAT and depressed subjects including a verbal fluency task, several components of a word memory test, an IQ deterioration index, and the Mini-Mental State Examination. The inability of DAT subjects to take advantage of semantic cues in both the verbal fluency and in the memory test contrasted with the performance of depressed and normal subjects, who were able to benefit from semantic cues. Depressed patients displayed deficits compared with normal controls on the more effortful verbal fluency task but not on the memory test. Tasks that are least effortful, rely on semantic associations, and require declarative memory are most likely to discriminate between DAT and depression.
Aged↗
The effect of word length and frequency on articulation and pausing during delayed auditory feedback.
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Adolescent↗
Measuring post-traumatic amnesia (PTA): an historical review.
The duration of post-traumatic amnesia (PTA), which is the period following brain injury when patients are disoriented and impaired in the acquisition of new information, has been used as a behavioural indicator of the severity of injury. This paper reviews earlier retrospective and more recently developed prospective methods of assessing the duration of PTA. Prospective assessment that commences before the resolution of PTA overcomes the possible over- or underestimation of the duration of PTA inherent in methods that assess PTA retrospectively by clinical interview.
Amnesia↗