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PubMed2000

Attentional capacity, a probe ERP study: differences between children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and normal control children and effects of methylphenidate.

In the present study it was investigated whether the smaller P3s in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) children are caused by a shortage of capacity underlying P3 processes or whether they are due to a capacity allocation problem. Also, effects of methylphenidate on these processes were investigated. Performance and event-related potentials (ERPs) of 14 ADHD and 14 control children were measured using an irrelevant-probe technique. Three types of task irrelevant visual probes (standards, deviants, and novels) were presented against the background of two visual tasks that varied in task difficulty. The parietal P3 wave was measured in response to task stimuli and probes. ADHD subjects made significantly fewer correct detections than normal controls in both the easy and the hard tasks. Controls showed an enhanced P3 to task-relevant stimuli in the hard task, whereas ADHD children did not. Probe (novel) P3 amplitudes decreased from the easy to the hard task to the same extent in both groups. Methylphenidate enhanced the percentage of correct responses and task P3 amplitudes in both the easy and the hard task but probe P3 amplitudes were not influenced by methylphenidate. It was concluded that ADHD children do not suffer from a shortage in attentional capacity; rather, the evidence is in favor of a problem with capacity allocation. Furthermore, methylphenidate had enhancing effects on performance and ERPs, but did not improve the capacity-allocation deficit.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

Visual attention to and comprehension of television in attention-deficit hyperactivity disordered and normal boys.

This study examined the effects of distracters on the television viewing of diagnosed ADHD (n = 19) and normal (n = 20) boys who ranged in age from 6 to 12 years. Subjects were videotaped watching four 7-min segments of "3-2-1 Contact," once in the presence and once in the absence of highly appealing toys. The results indicated that, while in the presence of toys, ADHD boys spent one-half as much time as control boys attending to the television. However, when toys were absent, there were no significant differences in visual attention between ADHD and normal boys. The effect of the toy manipulation was most dramatic with younger children of both groups. Recall of didactic content by ADHD boys and normal subjects did not differ significantly, even when the attention of ADHD boys was reduced. These findings suggest that ADHD children, like their normal counterparts, are active and strategic viewers of television.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1997

Functional MR to localize sustained visual attention activation in patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a pilot study.

PURPOSE: To evaluate brain control activation in patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and to provide an initial comparison between activated regions in ADHD subjects and those previously localized in an unaffected population. METHODS: Ten patients with ADHD underwent imaging with a functional blood oxygen level-dependent MR technique during sustained visual vigilance. Pixel activation was inspected visually and statistical group analysis was performed. RESULTS: Activation was seen over the bilateral middle frontal gyri, the superior parietal lobules, and the inferior parietal lobules. The predominant activity occurred in the right middle frontal gyrus. Application of an additional statistical constraint revealed significant activity in the right inferior and left superior parietal lobules. CONCLUSION: ADHD patients effectively tolerated the necessary MR imaging constraints despite their difficulty with confinement and immobility. Single-section functional MR imaging revealed activation in brain regions known to be involved in the maintenance of the attention in healthy subjects responding to auditory, tactile, or visual stimulation; additional areas of activity that were identified may represent true abnormal regions in the affected population or artifacts.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Moderators and mediators of treatment response for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: the Multimodal Treatment Study of children with Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

BACKGROUND: Intent-to-treat analyses of the study revealed that medication management, alone or combined with intensive behavioral treatment, was superior to behavioral treatment and community care in reducing attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms; but only combined treatment showed consistently greater benefit than community care across other outcome domains (disruptive and internalizing symptoms, achievement, parent-child relations, and social skills). We examine response patterns in subgroups defined by baseline variables (moderators) or variables related to treatment implementation (mediators). METHODS: We reconducted random-effects regression (RR) analyses, adding factors defined by moderators (sex, prior medication use, comorbid disruptive or anxiety disorder, and public assistance) and a mediator (treatment acceptance/attendance). RESULTS: Study outcomes (N = 579) were upheld in most moderator subgroups (boys and girls, children with and without prior medication, children with and without comorbid disruptive disorders). Comorbid anxiety disorder did moderate outcome; in participants without anxiety, results paralleled intent-to-treat findings. For those with anxiety disorders, however, behavioral treatment yielded significantly better outcomes than community care (and was no longer statistically different from medication management and combined treatment) regarding ADHD-related and internalizing symptoms. In families receiving public assistance, medication management yielded decreased closeness in parent-child interactions, and combined treatment yielded relatively greater benefits for teacher-reported social skills. In families with high treatment acceptance/attendance, intent-to-treat results were upheld. Acceptance/attendance was particularly important for medication treatments. Finally, two thirds of children given community care received stimulants. Behavioral treatment did not significantly differ from, but medication management was superior to, this subgroup. CONCLUSIONS: Exploratory analyses revealed that our study (the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder [MTA]) results were confirmed across most baseline variables and treatment acceptance/attendance. In children with ADHD plus anxiety, behavioral treatment surpassed community care and approached medication-based treatments regarding parent-reported ADHD symptoms.

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity↗
PubMed2005

Family therapy for attention-deficit disorder or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in children and adolescents.

BACKGROUND: Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is diagnosed in between 3% and 7% of school-age children and consists of the core symptoms of inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity. Children are often treated with medication, usually stimulant medication such as methylphenidate. Stimulant medication has been found to be effective for alleviating ADHD symptoms, at least in the short term. ADHD is also treated with a variety of psychosocial and psychoeducational interventions for parents, children, and with multicomponent interventions combined with medication management. However, many patients (10 to 13% of patients) cannot or prefer not to take medication. Family therapy without medication may help to develop structure in the family, help to manage children's behaviour, and may help families cope with distress from the presence of the disorder. OBJECTIVES: This review seeks to address the question of whether family therapy without medication can reduce the core symptoms of ADHD as compared to no treatment or standard treatment. SEARCH STRATEGY: The following electronic databases were searched using a specific search strategy: The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (The Cochrane Library Issue 3, 2004), MEDLINE (1966 to April 2004), PsycINFO (1872 to April 2004), CINAHL (1982 to April 2004), Biosis (Biological Abstracts) (1985 to March 2004), Dissertation Abstracts (1980 to April 2004), and Sociological Abstracts (Sociofile) (1963 to April 2004). Hand searches of relevant journals and bibliographies were also conducted and experts in the field were contacted for further information. SELECTION CRITERIA: Included studies were randomised controlled trials investigating the efficacy of behavioural family therapy, cognitive behavioural family therapy, or functional family therapy for children with ADHD or ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Studies were evaluated for methodological quality and to determine whether they met the inclusion criteria. MAIN RESULTS: This assessment yielded two studies. Data were extracted for both studies. The findings from Jensen 1999 (N=579) indicate that no difference can be detected between the efficacy of behavioural family therapy and treatment as usual in the community. The finding from the available data from Horn 1991 slightly favours treatment over medication placebo. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: Further research examining the effectiveness of family therapy versus a no-treatment control condition is needed to determine whether family therapy is an effective intervention for children with ADHD. There were no results available from studies investigating forms of family therapy other than behavioural family therapy.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

Preschool children's attention to television: visual attention and probe response times.

Moment-to-moment variations in the engagement of young children's cognitive capacity by televised material were examined using a secondary task paradigm. Thirty-five 5-year-olds watched a 35-min Sesame Street program containing three types of segments: normal segments, segments with scenes reordered, and segments with incomprehensible language audio tracks. While watching the program, children were to respond quickly to auditory probes distributed across all types of segments and positions within segments. Probe response times and visual attention were recorded. Major findings were: As indicated by longer probe response times, capacity was more effectively engaged if language was comprehensible, provided children were looking at television when probes were presented. If not looking, response times were equally fast across segment types. For normal segments only, there were increases in the engagement of cognitive capacity if a look at the television or the program content had been continuous for some time. The findings provide evidence for, but important refinements of, the hypothesis that young children's ongoing comprehension is a major determinant of their attention to television.

Attention↗
PubMed1985

Music draws attention to the left and speech draws attention to the right.

Providing free-field music input prompts right-handers to attend to their left side in a loudness-matching task that requires no musical analysis. Conversely, speech prompts rightward attention. The processes inferred are akin to the attentional asymmetry demonstrated in the syndrome of hemispatial neglect.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Encoding during the attentional lapse: accuracy of encoding during the semantic sustained attention to response task.

An experiment investigated the relationship between the ability to encode verbal stimuli during an attentional lapse. The task employed a variation on the sustained attention to response task (SART, Robertson, Manly, Andrade, Baddeley, & Yiend, 1997) which involved the detection of an infrequent target against a background of words. As a manipulation, participants were either instructed to encode the stimuli or were merely exposed to the stimuli. Retrieval was measured using process dissociation. Irrespective of the instructions given to the participants during the task, participants were more likely to retrieve information on the basis of recollection after an error was made than before, whilst the likelihood of retrieving information on the basis of familiarity remained invariant over the same period. The implications of this result for methods of investigating subjective experience are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Motivated attention in emotional picture processing is reflected by activity modulation in cortical attention networks.

In the present study, we presented high (pleasant and unpleasant)- and low (neutral)-arousing emotional pictures in a steady state visual evoked field paradigm while recording the magnetoencephalogram. Applying a minimum norm estimation (MNE) technique, we determined the origin and the strength of the evoked neuromagnetic field. In addition to magnetocortical data, we examined subjective ratings, heart rate change and viewing time to obtain a multivariate data base of emotional experience related to the present paradigm. As evidenced by the MNE, pictures rated as high arousing elicited greater activity in frontoparietal cortical networks than low-arousing pictures, with a right hemispheric predominance. This effect was also observed in occipito-temporal regions but to a lesser extent. Longer viewing times for high-arousing pictures and sustained heart rate deceleration for high-arousing unpleasant pictures indicated that these stimuli were of high motivational relevance compared to neutral pictures. Taken together, we argue that activity in higher-order frontoparietal cortical attention networks is modulated by emotional arousal. In turn, this attention network influences activity in systems performing stimulus processing.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Intergenerational transmission of somatization behaviour: 2. Observations of joint attention and bids for attention.

BACKGROUND: Somatoform disorders may have their roots in childhood through processes that involve an enhanced parental focus on health. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that somatizing mothers will show less joint involvement than other mothers during play but greater responsiveness when this play involves a 'medical' theme. METHOD: Cross-sectional observational study of 42 chronic somatizers, 44 organically ill and 50 healthy mothers and their 4-8 year-old children during structured play and a meal. Tasks comprised boxes containing tea-set items, 'medical' items and a light snack. RESULTS: Somatizing mothers were emotionally flatter and showed lower rates of joint attention than other mothers during both play tasks. While the three groups had similar rate of bids for attention, somatizing mothers were more responsive to their child's bids during play with the medical box than at other times. In contrast, the children of somatizing mothers ignored a greater proportion of their mother's bids during play with the medical box than did children of other mothers or during play with a non-medical theme. CONCLUSION: The study has demonstrated tentative evidence in support of the hypothesis.

Affect↗
PubMed1992

Attentional cues in chronic schizophrenia: abnormal disengagement of attention.

Posner's (1980) reaction time (RT) paradigm was used to examine the engagement and disengagement operations of visual selective attention in patients with schizophrenia. In the 1st experiment, 14 medicated, chronic schizophrenic subjects (diagnosed by criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; American Psychiatric Association, 1987) and 15 age-matched normal control subjects made a speeded response to a target preceded by a valid, an invalid, or no cue. Control subjects showed the expected advantage and disadvantage in RT for valid and invalid cues, which suggests intact engagement and disengagement operations. For schizophrenic patients, valid cues also enhanced RT, but invalid cues did not slow RT. Similar results were found in the 2nd experiment. The failure of unpredictable, invalid cues to inhibit RT in chronic schizophrenia may be related to an abnormality in the disengagement operation of selective attention.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Selective attention deficits in persons with autism: preliminary evidence of an inefficient attentional lens.

A forced-choice reaction time (RT) task was used to assess the filtering component of selective attention in mental-age (MA) matched groups of persons with autism (n = 12), organic mental retardation (n = 32), familial mental retardation (n = 30), and no handicap (n = 34). Conditions varied with regard to the presence or absence of a window and number (zero, two or four) and location of distractors. The RTs of the persons with autism improved relative to the other groups in the presence of the window without distractors, but this effect was negated when distractors were also presented. The performance of the persons with autism was the most impaired in the presence of distractors. These findings represent preliminary behavioral evidence of an inefficient attentional lens among persons with autism.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Selective attention and clinical depression: performance on a deployment-of-attention task.

Clinically depressed and nondepressed individuals completed a deployment-of-attention task developed by I. H. Gotlib, A. L. McLachlan, and A. N. Katz (1988). Results indicated that the clinically depressed individuals perform the task in an unbiased fashion, attending equally to positive-, negative-, and neutral-content stimuli. In contrast, the nondepressed individuals demonstrated a "protective" bias against the perception of negative stimuli by avoiding such material in favor of positive or neutral stimuli. Overall, the results of this study suggest that clinically depressed individuals do not show an attentional bias toward negative information, but rather, fail to demonstrate the positive or protective bias that is evident in nondepressed individuals.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Smoking, anxiety, and attention: support for the role of nicotine in attentionally mediated anxiolysis.

Based on J.D. Kassel and S. Shiffman's (1997) study, the hypothesis was tested that cigarette smoking's anxiolytic effects are attentionally mediated and depend on the presence of benign distraction. This study explored whether the attentionally mediated anxiolytic effects of smoking observed in the J. D. Kassel and S. Shiffman (1997) study could be replicated and are attributable to nicotine. The study examined the effect on anxiety of smoking a high- or low-yield nicotine cigarette with or without a current distraction in 67 smokers. As predicted, only those who smoked a high-yield cigarette paired with participation in a distracting activity experienced a significant reduction in anxiety. Those who smoked a high-yield cigarette in the absence of distraction experienced a slight exacerbation of anxiety. These findings suggest that nicotine--not the behavioral or sensory aspects of smoking--interacts with distraction and leads to alleviation of anxiety.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Feature-based memory-driven attentional capture: visual working memory content affects visual attention.

In 7 experiments, the authors explored whether visual attention (the ability to select relevant visual information) and visual working memory (the ability to retain relevant visual information) share the same content representations. The presence of singleton distractors interfered more strongly with a visual search task when it was accompanied by an additional memory task. Singleton distractors interfered even more when they were identical or related to the object held in memory, but only when it was difficult to verbalize the memory content. Furthermore, this content-specific interaction occurred for features that were relevant to the memory task but not for irrelevant features of the same object or for once-remembered objects that could be forgotten. Finally, memory-related distractors attracted more eye movements but did not result in longer fixations. The results demonstrate memory-driven attentional capture on the basis of content-specific representations.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

Anxiety and attention: is there an attentional bias for positive emotional stimuli?

Empirical research has shown that anxiety is associated with a systematic bias in the cognitive system. Anxious individuals (clinically anxious patients and normal individuals with high-trait anxiety) are characterized by a pattern of selective processing that favors the encoding of threatening information. Is this attentional bias specific to threat-related information, or does it operate for positive emotional stimuli? The research directly connected with the existence of an attentional bias for threat in anxiety was examined.

Anxiety↗
PubMed2002

Altered cortical activity in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder during attentional load task.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether cortical activity recorded during attentional load in children with ADHD is different compared with controls. METHOD: Quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) was performed at open eyes and during performance of the Continuous Performance Task. RESULTS: Children with ADHD showed an altered pattern of QEEG activity, especially during the attentional load task, with increased slow cortical activity (mainly over the frontal areas) and decreased fast cortical activity. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate a different arousal level in children with ADHD, which could be due to a delay in functional cortical maturation. To evaluate the clinical importance of these findings, a longitudinal follow-up will be conducted.

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity↗
PubMed1993

Attention allocation: effects of alcohol and information salience on attentional processes in male social drinkers.

The purpose of this study was to examine the interactive effects of alcohol and salience of social cues (personality traits) on allocation of attention in the intoxicated male social drinker. It was expected that inebriated subjects would preferentially attend to high threat relative to low threat information contingent on the information's personal relevance. Seventy-six participants received either alcohol or a placebo, or were in a control condition, and were given the opportunity to attend to personally salient or nonsalient positive, negative, and neutral information. Intoxicated participants viewed negative traits longer than did nonintoxicated subjects and attended to these traits longer in the salient than in the nonsalient condition. Findings are compared to the attention allocation model, and their implications for alcohol-mediated cognitive processes are discussed.

Adult↗