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PubMed2004

Selective attention in schizophrenia: sparing and loss of executive control.

OBJECTIVE: Auditory selective attention involves top-down modulation of sensory processing to selectively filter relevant from irrelevant information. Patients with schizophrenia have deficits in auditory selective attention, but whether these attention deficits are evident at the earliest stages of auditory processing or emerge later in the processing stream is unknown. METHOD: Event-related potentials were used to assess the integrity and time course of auditory attention in schizophrenia during a cross-modal selective attention task. A random sequence of equiprobable loud and soft speech sounds and bright and dim checkerboard patterns occurred every 800 to 1200 msec. A button press was required in response to soft speech sounds in the auditory attention task and to dim checkerboards in the visual attention task. Event-related potentials were recorded from 15 patients with DSM-IV schizophrenia and 16 age- and gender-matched healthy comparison subjects. RESULTS: As early as 50 msec, both patients and comparison subjects showed evidence of cross-modal selective attention. These attention effects were sustained until 300 msec in comparison subjects but were no longer evident in patients by 100 msec. CONCLUSIONS: Schizophrenia patients implemented an early attentional filter but failed to sustain selective attention later in the processing stream. This suggests that initially intact executive control of auditory attention cannot be sustained in schizophrenia, perhaps implicating dysfunction in frontotemporal pathways.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed1997

Attentional functioning in children and adolescents with IDDM.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether specific attentional cognitive processes are disrupted in children and adolescents with IDDM. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: We tested 103 children and adolescents with IDDM and 100 healthy control subjects (age range 9.3-18.3 years) for intelligence and attention. Subjects were given multiple clinical tests of attention and a computerized vigilance test, all of which served to provide information about multiple components of attentional processing. Specific components studied were the abilities to focus, select, shift, suppress, inhibit, and sustain attention. A diabetic history was obtained for the IDDM group, and blood glucose levels were determined before and after computerized attention testing. RESULTS: Across tests, IDDM subjects differed from control subjects only in the select component of attention, which was accounted for mainly by the poorer performance of children with early-onset diabetes (< 6 years). When subgrouped by history of seizures from hypoglycemia, those having had seizures demonstrated a lower verbal IQ and greater difficulty with select, focus, and inhibit attentional components, whereas sustain, suppress, and shift attentional components were unaffected. Correlation analyses showed that higher concurrent blood glucose levels were associated with less adequate ability to inhibit impulsive responses, whereas multiple regression analyses indicated that inhibit and focus were best predicted by onset age and concurrent blood glucose. CONCLUSIONS: In children and adolescents with IDDM, attention is poorer in several but not all aspects of attention; these aspects are affected by a history of seizures from hypoglycemia and higher ambient blood glucose levels at time of testing. These results suggest both organizational and activational effects of diabetes on specific subcomponents of attention in diabetes.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2000

Attentional capture by abrupt onsets and feature singletons produces inhibitory surrounds.

Two experiments found that form discriminations to a target item were inhibited when the target appeared adjacent to an attentionally salient item. Experiment 1 manipulated the attentional salience of an irrelevant color singleton through the attentional set adopted by the subjects. Color singletons captured attention when the target was itself a feature singleton, but not when the target was defined as a conjunction of features. Attentional capture was accompanied by an inhibitory region (i.e., slowed target reaction times), which dissipated with distance from the color singleton. In Experiment 2, the attentional salience of abrupt onsets and color singletons was compared. Irrelevant abrupt onsets captured attention, whereas irrelevant color singletons failed to capture attention. Again, an inhibitory region surrounded the attentionally salient abrupt onsets, but not the color singletons. The results are discussed in the context of current models of visual spatial attention and suggest a distinction between attentional preparation and attentional selection.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Getting the attention you need.

Employees have an enormous amount of business information at their fingertips--more specifically, at their desktops. The floodgates are open; profitable possibilities abound. But having to handle all that information has pushed downsized staffs to the brink of an acute attention deficit disorder. To achieve corporate goals, business leaders need their employees' full attention--and that attention is in short supply. Authors Thomas Davenport and John Beck have studied how companies manage the attention of their employees and their site visitors. In this article, they analyze the components of attention management through three lenses--economic, psychobiological, and technological--and offer guidelines for keeping employees focused on crucial corporate tasks. Their lessons are drawn from the best practices employed by today's stickiest Web sites and by traditional attention industries such as advertising, film, and television. The authors say executives must manage attention knowing that it's a zero-sum game (there's only so much to go around). Managers should also consider capitalizing on the basic survival and competitive instincts we all have that help determine how much attention we pay to certain things. For instance, the threat of corporate demise--and the consequent loss of jobs and livelihoods--undoubtedly focuses workers' attention on the need to change. Likewise, internal competition among business units may give employees added incentive to pay attention to a profit or sales goal. Leaders today need to pay more attention to attention because it's widely misunderstood and widely mismanaged, the authors conclude.

Attention↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Attention processes and neuropsychological syndromes].

INTRODUCTION: Both cognitive psychology and neuropsychology require an approach to the multidimensional 'attention'. DEVELOPMENT: Attention permits behaviour to be suitable to the task in hand. According to the situation or activity required, the components or mechanisms of attention necessary vary (selectivity, alertness, vigilance, focus, inhibitory control mechanisms, etc.)as do the different neural networks involved. In the different neuropsychological syndromes different components and attention mechanisms are affected. For instance, in attention deficit disorder there is inability to take notice of control of carrying out inappropriate responses, whilst in visual heminegligence there may be a defect of a mechanism such as disconnection of attention selective to a given space. To obtain coherent results in the study of attention disorders in various syndromes, the different components and attention mechanisms should be systematically evaluated using specific tests. In neuropsychology frequently the tests used only measured the aspects most closely connected to speed of perception and visual selective attention, without evaluating other components. Sometimes study data measuring different aspects of attention have been compared, and therefore the conclusions drawn regarding possible attention disorders were controversial. The lack of standardised data and the difficulty of establishing 'pure' tests of attention mechanisms make the task more arduous. CONCLUSION: Only the integration of experimental studies of cognitive psychology and the techniques and procedures of neuropsychology permit clarification of the construction and the advance of explanatory models.

Attention↗

PubMed1997

Attention to one or two features in left or right visual field: a positron emission tomography study.

In human vision, two features of the same object can be identified concurrently without loss of accuracy. Performance declines, however, when the features belong to different objects in opposite visual fields. We hypothesized that different positron emission tomography activation patterns would reflect these behavioral results. We first delineated an attention network for single discriminations in left or right visual field and then compared this with the activation pattern when subjects divided attention over two features of a single object or over two objects in opposite hemifields. When subjects attended to a single feature, parietal, premotor, and anterior cingulate cortex were activated. These effects were strongest in the right hemisphere and were, remarkably, unaffected by the direction of attention. In contrast, direction of attention affected occipital and frontal activity: right occipital and left lateral frontal activity were higher with attention to the left, whereas right lateral frontal activity was higher with attention to the right. When subjects identified two features of the same object, parietal, premotor, and anterior cingulate activity was enhanced further, predominantly this time in the left hemisphere. Again, there was no direction sensitivity. Direction-sensitive activation of lateral frontal cortex also was increased. Finally, when subjects divided their attention over opposite hemifields, activity in the direction-sensitive occipital and frontal regions fell to a level midway between those seen during exclusively leftward or rightward attention. Thus, the behavioral efficiency with which we attend to multiple features of a single peripheral object is paralleled by enhanced activity in structures generally active during peripheral selective attention as well as in structures that depend on the specific direction of attention, most notably lateral frontal cortex. In addition, in the direction-sensitive regions, dividing attention over hemifields causes a compromise pattern between the extreme levels obtained during unilateral attention.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Attentional functioning in children with ADHD - predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type and children with ADHD - combined type.

Although particular importance has been attributed to attention deficits in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), there is no consensus as to the exact nature of inattention in ADHD or which components of attention are affected. The present study was based on a neuropsychological model of attention and assessed various components of attention in 23 children with ADHD/predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type (ADHD-H), 32 children with ADHD/combined type (ADHD-C) and healthy children (N(1) = 23 and N(2) = 32). A computerized test battery consisting of reaction time tasks of low complexity was used for the assessment of attention (alertness task, vigilance task, divided attention task, visual scanning task, incompatibility task, test of crossmodal integration, flexibility task). In comparison to healthy participants, patient groups were impaired in measures of vigilance, divided attention, selective attention and flexibility but not in measures of alertness. Analysis of the test performance of patient groups revealed no differences between children with ADHD-H and children with ADHD-C. The results of the present study suggest that both children with ADHD-H and children with ADHD-C are seriously impaired in attentional functioning. Children with ADHD-H and children with ADHD-C produced comparable results in measures of attention.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2000

Visual attention and aging.

The present review of visual attentional processes and aging focuses on definitions of attention that emphasize some aspect of the control of information processing (selective attention) or the processing resources needed to drive these control processes (attentional capacity). Emphasis is placed on how increased adult age affects attentional mechanisms and how these age differences in attention affect overall information processing. Past research has emphasized that selective attention appears to be resistant to age-related decline. Age-related deficits in attentional capacity or processing resources, however, have been found. A review of more recent psychological research demonstrates the extension of the investigation of attention with emphasis on further defining what is selected in selective attention, and on reexamining the processing resources or capacity issue. Finally, developments in cognitive neuroscience are reviewed in terms of their relevance to attention and aging.

Age Factors↗

PubMed1985

[Attention and distractibility in hyperkinetic children. Methods and results of research].

Sustained attention in children was investigated with a new method in which 4 measures of attention are recorded simultaneously over a period of 30 minutes during a self-paced operant task. A preliminary study with 56 normal children revealed that performance speed and brief lapses in attention have low validity as measures of attention, but errors and especially impulsive reactions have high validity. Impulsive behavior is thus characteristic not only for hyperactive children but also for normal children with attentional problems in everyday situations. The subjects in the main investigation were 12 hyperactive boys aged 8 to 11 years old. Hyperactivity had to be the major complaint, with the diagnosis substantiated by a pediatrician's findings and by a high motor-activity score in a teacher's assessment. Twelve normal boys matched for age, IQ and grade in school served as control subjects. All children attended regular schools and were of normal intelligence. The validity of the selection procedure was confirmed by the significantly lower heart rate found in the hyperactive group. Attention was assessed for 30 minutes under quiet and distraction conditions. The groups differed significantly in number of errors and number of impulsive reactions, but only in the absence of distraction. The stress of sustained attention for 30 minutes did not increase the differences; on the contrary, they decreased. A special type of attentional deficit in hyperactive children could not be confirmed. Our results do not support the hypothesis that hyperactive children are more distractible, have more frequent brief lapses in attention or have a poorer ability to sustain attention than normal children. Rather, they suggest that the attentional deficits represent a personality trait.

Attention↗

PubMed2002

Activation of attention networks using frequency analysis of a simple auditory-motor paradigm.

The purpose of this study was to devise a paradigm that stimulates attention using a frequency-based analysis of the data acquired during a motor task. Six adults (30-40 years of age) and one child (10 years) were studied. Each subject was requested to attend to "start" and "stop" commands every 20 s alternatively and had to respond with the motor task every second time. Attention was stimulated during a block-designed, motor paradigm in which a start-stop commands cycle produced activation at the fourth harmonic of the motor frequency. We disentangled the motor and attention functions using statistical analysis with subspaces spanned by vectors generated by a truncated trigonometric series of motor and attention frequency. During our auditory-motor paradigm, all subjects showed activation in areas that belong to an extensive attention network. Attention and motor functions were coactivated but with different frequencies. While the motor-task-related areas were activated with slower frequency than attention, the activation in the attention-related areas was enhanced every time the subject had to start or end the motor task. We suggest that although a simple block-designed, auditory-motor paradigm stimulates the attention network, motor preparation, and motor inhibition concurrently, a frequency-based analysis can distinguish attention from motor functions. Due to its simplicity the paradigm can be valuable in studying children with attention deficit disorders.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Experimental manipulation of attentional bias increases the motivation to drink alcohol.

RATIONALE: Attentional bias for alcohol-related cues is associated with the motivation to drink alcohol, possibly because attentional bias increases craving. OBJECTIVES: We examined whether an experimentally induced attentional bias would influence subjective and behavioural indices of the motivation to drink. METHODS: Heavy social drinkers (N=40) completed an attentional training procedure, in which half of the participants were trained to direct their attention towards alcohol-related cues ('attend alcohol'), and half of the participants were trained to direct their attention away from alcohol-related cues ('avoid alcohol'). After attentional training, participants rated their urge to drink alcohol, and the amount of beer consumed during a taste test was measured. RESULTS: The attentional training procedure produced significant changes in attentional bias in the predicted direction in both experimental groups. Attentional training produced an increase in the urge to drink alcohol in the attend alcohol group, and the attend alcohol group consumed more beer than the avoid alcohol group during the taste test. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that a potentiated attentional bias for alcohol-related cues can increase the motivation to drink alcohol. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

The role of 5-HT1a and 5-HT2a receptors in attention and motor control: a mechanistic study in healthy volunteers.

RATIONALE: Various studies have demonstrated a modulating role for serotonin in attention. Selective serotonin inhibitors have repeatedly been shown to impair performance in sustained attention tasks. OBJECTIVES: To assess the contribution of serotonin reuptake inhibition and specific blockade of the pre-synaptic 5-HT(1a) receptor and the 5-HT(2a) receptor to deficits in attention. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was conducted according to a randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled, four-way crossover design including 16 healthy volunteers. Treatments consisted of oral administration of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) escitalopram 20 mg + placebo; escitalopram 20 mg + ketanserin (5-HT(2a) antagonist), 50 mg; escitalopram 20 mg + pindolol (5-HT(1a) antagonist) 10 mg; and placebo + placebo on four separate days. A range of performance tasks were conducted to assess the subjects' attention and motor functions. RESULTS: Escitalopram administered alone impaired tracking performance in a divided attention task. The combination of escitalopram and pindolol and escitalopram and ketanserin impaired divided attention as compared to placebo. In addition, escitalopram and ketanserin impaired sustained attention. Divided attention impairment observed after combined treatments did not significantly differ from impairments after escitalopram alone. Sustained attention impairment observed after combined escitalopram and ketanserin significantly differed from escitalopram alone. CONCLUSIONS: 5HT(1a) blockade hardly affected SSRI effects on attention. Additional 5HT(2a) blockade, however, produced impairments of sustained attention and motor impulse control.

Administration, Oral↗

PubMed1988

Implications of ERP data for psychological theories of attention.

The contribution of the event-related potential (ERP) research to understanding human selective attention will be evaluated. A closely related issue, the starting point of the present treatment, involves the nature and extent of automaticity in information processing. The mismatch-negativity component of the ERP suggests that the basic, obligatory, processing of the physical features of auditory stimuli is unaffected by the direction of attention. These data also reveal a possible mechanism for attention switching to stimulus change occurring in the unattended input, observed by cognitive psychologists. The N1 wave of the ERP might in turn provide a data base for explaining similar attention switches to stimulus onsets after breaks in stimulation and to offsets of long-duration stimuli. With regard to selective attention, the processing negativity might make it possible to delineate the central principle of stimulus selection in attention, a goal probably inaccessible to non-physiological attention research. In the visual modality, cognitive psychologists have found that spatial attention is more fundamental and powerful in stimulus selection than any other form of visual selective attention. Consistently, ERP data show that the exogenous components in vision are enhanced by spatial selective attention but not when attended and unattended stimuli are not spatially separated. Also, ERP data (the P3 wave) give support to certain forms of resource-allocation theories of attention. In addition, with regard to the currently popular distinction between automatic versus controlled processing, these data strongly suggest that extended consistent-mapping training does not lead to a "genuine" automatization of a search process in the sense of independence of a limited-capacity system.

Attention↗

PubMed2006

Effects of right-hemisphere cortical infarction and muscarinic acetylcholine receptor blockade on spatial visual attention performance in rats.

The syndrome of hemispatial neglect is defined as an inability to report, respond or orient to stimuli contralateral to a cerebral lesion despite intact elementary sensory or motor function. This syndrome is typically observed after lesions of the right cerebral cortex, and has been associated with impairment of attention. We studied whether visual attention performance is impaired after right-hemisphere infarction in rats. Using a behavioural paradigm measuring spatial visual attention, we tested the effects of photothrombotic infarction to either the frontal cortex or the parietal cortex on attention performance. Since the cholinergic system is known to modulate attention performance, we additionally evaluated the role of cholinergic receptor blockade with scopolamine in our task paradigm. Our results show a transient response bias immediately after cortical infarction, with a decrease in contralesional responses and an increase in contralesional omissions after frontal infarction. Parietal infarction and systemic administration of scopolamine also resulted in a decrease in correct responses and an increase in omissions, but without a difference in side responding. In conclusion, right frontal infarction induces a transient impairment in contralesional spatial visual attention that we explain as left-sided neglect. Right parietal infarction and cholinergic blockade shows non-lateralized deficits in spatial visual attention, suggestive of global attentional impairment. We postulate that both effects of cortical infarction on attention performance may be related to cholinergic dysfunction. Our study confirms the role of frontal and parietal cortices in attention performance in rats, and corroborates the theory that attention performance is impaired in hemispatial neglect in human stroke patients.

Analysis of Variance↗

PubMed2006

The scope and limits of top-down attention in unconscious visual processing.

Attentional selection plays a critical role in conscious perception. When attention is diverted, even salient stimuli fail to reach visual awareness. Attention can be voluntarily directed to a spatial location or a visual feature for facilitating the processing of information relevant to current goals. In everyday situations, attention and awareness are tightly coupled. This has led some to suggest that attention and awareness might be based on a common neural foundation, whereas others argue that they are mediated by distinct mechanisms. A body of evidence shows that visual stimuli can be processed at multiple stages of the visual-processing streams without evoking visual awareness. To illuminate the relationship between visual attention and conscious perception, we investigated whether top-down attention can target and modulate the neural representations of unconsciously processed visual stimuli. Our experiments show that spatial attention can target only consciously perceived stimuli, whereas feature-based attention can modulate the processing of invisible stimuli. The attentional modulation of unconscious signals implies that attention and awareness can be dissociated, challenging a simplistic view of the boundary between conscious and unconscious visual processing.

Adaptation, Physiological↗

PubMed2005

The association between early minor motor difficulties in extreme low birth weight infants and school age attentional difficulties.

INTRODUCTION: Extremely premature infants of normal intellectual ability have an increased prevalence of motor and attentional difficulties. Knowledge of the relationship between early motor difficulties and measures of attention at school age would enhance understanding of these developmental pathways, their interrelationship and opportunities for intervention. OBJECTIVE: This study examines whether an association exists between early findings of minor motor difficulties and school age clinical and psychometric measures of attention. METHODOLOGY: 45/60 eligible ELBW(1000 g) or preterm (< 27/40 gestation) infants born at the Mater Mother's Hospital were assessed at 12 and 24 months for minor motor deficits (using NSMDA) and at 7-9 years for attention, using clinical (Conners and Du Paul Rating Scales) and psychometric (assessing attention span, selective and divided attention) measures. RESULTS: NSMDA at 12 months was only associated with the psychometric measures of verbal attention span. It was not associated with later clinical measures of attention. NSMDA at 24 months was strongly associated with specific clinical measures of attention at school age, independent of biological and social factors. It was not associated with psychometric measures of attention. CONCLUSION: The major finding of this study is that motor difficulties in ELBW infants at 2 years are associated with later clinical measures of attention. Possible mechanisms underlying this relationship are considered.

Adult↗

PubMed2001

Dissociating top-down attentional control from selective perception and action.

Research into the neural mechanisms of attention has revealed a complex network of brain regions that are involved in the execution of attention-demanding tasks. Recent advances in human neuroimaging now permit investigation of the elementary processes of attention being subserved by specific components of the brain's attention system. Here we describe recent studies of spatial selective attention that made use of positron emission tomography (PET), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to investigate the spatio-temporal dynamics of the attention-related neural activity. We first review the results from an event-related fMRI study that examined the neural mechanisms underlying top-down attentional control versus selective sensory perception. These results defined a fronto-temporal-parietal network involved in the control of spatial attention. Activity in these areas biased the neural activity in sensory brain structures coding the spatial locations of upcoming target stimuli, preceding a modulation of subsequent target processing in visual cortex. We then present preliminary evidence from a fast-rate event-related fMRI study of spatial attention that demonstrates how to disentangle the potentially overlapping hemodynamic responses elicited by temporally adjacent stimuli in studies of attentional control. Finally, we present new analyses from combined neuroimaging (PET) and event-related brain potential (ERP) studies that together reveal the timecourse of activation of brain regions implicated in attentional control and selective perception.

Attention↗

PubMed1997

The transient 40-Hz response, mismatch negativity, and attentional processes in humans.

1. Recent experimental studies on the neurophysiological basis of auditory selective attention and sensory memory forming the sensory-data basis for tuning the selective-attention system in humans are reviewed. 2. The results demonstrate that the transient 40-Hz response is enhanced by selective attention, attenuated in the course of long-term stimulation, but is not affected by changes in auditory stimuli. 3. Therefore, the 40-Hz response seems to be closely related to selective and sustained attention, whereas it does not seem to be associated with passive attention, as it does not reflect the detection of changes in auditory stimuli. 4. Changes in auditory stimulation are registered by pre-attentive sensory memory, indexed by the mismatch negativity (MMN), a change-specific component of the event-related potentials (ERPs). By this time, the transient 40-Hz response has already terminated. The magnitude of stimulus change is reflected in MMN latency. These latency changes predict changes in attentive reaction time (RT). 5. Thus, the pre-attentive memory mechanism seems to govern attentive detection of changes in the auditory environment. 6. It is concluded that the transient 40-Hz response is related to active attention and MMN is related to passive attention.

Attention↗