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PubMed1997

Effects of attention on infants' preference for briefly exposed visual stimuli in the paired-comparison recognition-memory paradigm.

This study examined the effect of attention on 3- to 6-month-olds responses to briefly exposed visual stimuli. In Study I, stimuli presented at 2.5 or 5.0 s resulted in a familiarity preference in a subsequent paired-comparison procedure. A novelty preference was found with 10.0- or 20.0-s exposure durations. In Study 2, a Sesame Street movie elicited heart-rate-defined attention phases and stimuli replaced Sesame Street during sustained attention, attention termination, or 5.0 s following attention termination. For 20 and 26-week-olds. Stimuli presented for 5.0 s during sustained attention resulted in a novelty preference similar to that found when exposure time was 20.0 s. The duration of stimulus exposure during sustained attention in the familiarization phase was positively correlated with the preference for the novel stimulus in the paired-comparison procedure. Thus, processing of briefly presented visual stimuli differs depending on the type of attention in which the infant is currently engaged.

Arousal↗
PubMed1998

Further evidence for a deficit in switching attention in schizophrenia.

In this study, sustained, selective, divided, and switching attention, and reloading of working memory were investigated in schizophrenia by using a newly developed Visual Attention Battery (VAB). Twenty-four outpatients with schizophrenia and 24 control participants were studied using the VAB. Performance on VAB components was correlated with performance of standard tests. Patients with schizophrenia were significantly impaired on VAB tasks that required switching of attention and reloading of working memory but had normal performance on tasks involving sustained attention or attention to multiple stimulus features. Switching attention and reloading of working memory were highly correlated with Trails (B-A) score for patients. The decline in performance on the switching-attention task in patients with schizophrenia met criteria for a differential deficit in switching attention. Future research should examine the neurophysiological basis of the switching deficit and its sensitivity and specificity to schizophrenia.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Orienting attention without awareness.

Previous research has shown that visual attention can be directed to a spatial location in 2 qualitatively different ways. Attention can be allocated endogenously in response to centrally presented precues, or it can be captured exogenously by a visual stimulus with an abrupt onset. It has been suggested that exogenous orienting of attention is an automatic process, whereas endogenous orienting of attention represents a controlled and strategic process. M.I. Posner and C.R.R. Snyder (1975) suggested that an automatic process occurs without intention, does not interfere with other mental processes, and does not necessarily give rise to awareness, whereas a controlled process will likely interfere with other processes and necessarily requires intention and awareness. Three experiments investigated the role of awareness in orienting visual attention. Endogenous and exogenous components of orienting attention were placed in opposition to each other to assess the automaticity of exogenous orienting by examining the potential for brief stimulus events to capture attention in the absence of subjective awareness. Results show that an exogenous cue presented below a subjective threshold of awareness captured attention automatically and without awareness.

Attention↗
PubMed1988

Aging, attention, and intelligence.

The aims of this study were (a) to find out if attentional ability factors that are separate from the well-established ability factors (e.g., fluid intelligence, crystallized intelligence, and short-term acquisition and retrieval function) can be identified, and (b) to establish, through the use of part correlations, whether attentional abilities play a role in the changes in fluid and crystallized intelligence that occur with increasing age. A battery of 36 tests (19 psychometric tests and 17 measures of attentional processes) were given to 100 people. 20 of whom were in each age decade between 20 and 70. Results indicated that three attentional factors--Search, Concentration, and Attentional Flexibility--exist at the primary-ability level and that all three define fluid intelligence at the second-order level. Results also indicate that the decline in fluid intelligence with increasing age disappears if attentional factors are parted-out. Similarly, the increase in crystallized intelligence with increasing age becomes even greater if one controls for attentional processes. I conclude that changes in attentional processes play an important part in changes in human intelligence with age.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

PET studies of parietal involvement in spatial attention: comparison of different task types.

Five experiments are described that concern the mechanisms that direct attention to spatial and non-spatial features of a stimulus and the effects that attention has on the visual system's analysis of that stimulus. Shifts of attention from one spatial location to another activated the superior parietal lobe and this activation was fairly independent of the task performed on the attended object, the response made to the attended object, and whether the shift of attention was controlled endogenously or exogenously. Maintaining attention tonically on a location or a particular visual feature such as shape, colour or motion did not produce a superior parietal response. Tonic attention to a feature (colour, shape, motion) or location, however, did produce enhancements in the response of various regions that are probably specialized for processing the attended visual feature. The activation of superior parietal cortex during shifts of spatial attention as well as the activation of parietal-occipital cortex when attention is tonically maintained on a location suggest that the parietal cortex plays an important role in spatial computations.

Animals↗
PubMed1996

Shared neural control of attentional shifts and eye movements.

We are able to move visual attention away from the direction of gaze, fixating on one object while attending to something else at a different location, within the region of peripheral vision. It has been widely assumed that the attentional neural systems are separate from the motor systems, but some studies challenge this idea. It has now been suggested that the attentional system is part of the premotor processing in the brain. This model proposes that attentional processes evolved as part of the motor systems, with isolated attentional shifts representing an artificial separation of a natural linkage. Here we test how attentional shifts might be linked to the preparations for making saccadic eye movements. We studied the superior colliculus in monkeys as they shifted their attention during different tasks, and found that each attentional shift is associated with eye-movement preparation.

Animals↗
PubMed1997

Abnormal temporal dynamics of visual attention in spatial neglect patients.

When we identify a visual object such as a word or letter, our ability to detect a second object is impaired if it appears within 400ms of the first. This phenomenon has been termed the attentional blink or dwell time and is a measure of our ability to allocate attention over time (temporal attention). Patients with unilateral visual neglect are unaware of people or objects contralateral to their lesion. They are considered to have a disorder of attending to a particular location in space (spatial attention). Here we examined the non-spatial temporal dynamics of attention in patients, using a protocol for assessing the attentional blink. Neglect patients with right parietal, frontal or basal ganglia strokes had an abnormally severe and protracted attentional blink When they identified a letter, their awareness of a subsequent letter was significantly diminished for a length of time that was three times as long as for individuals without neglect. Our results demonstrate for the first time that visual neglect is a disorder of directing attention in time, as well as space.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

The neuroanatomy of attention.

Attention is a complex neurobehavioral domain that is essential for all higher functions. Large areas of the brain are devoted to attention, reflecting its importance in the entire range of mental operations. Currently, two major distributed neural networks are recognized as mediating complementary aspects of attentional function. One is a diffuse system that distributes attention globally. This attentional system is subserved by a widespread network of thalamic and bihemispheric structures in which the frontal lobes are particularly important. The second network, a focal system that distributes attention to salient aspects of spatial experience, is lateralized to frontal and parietal regions of the right hemisphere. Both attentional networks are comprised of cortical and subcortical gray matter structures, as well as connecting white matter tracts that integrate these regions into functional ensembles. Neurological disorders frequently produce dramatic syndromes reflecting dysfunction of these networks. Among these syndromes are the acute confusional state, which results from disturbance of the diffuse system, and left neglect, which follows disruption of the right hemisphere system. The neuroanatomy of attention is crucial for understanding important neurobehavioral syndromes and their treatment.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed1998

Attentional modulation in perception of visual motion events.

Identical visual targets moving across each other with equal and constant speed can be perceived either to bounce off or to stream through each other. This bistable motion perception has been studied mostly in the context of motion integration. Since the perception of most ambiguous motion is affected by attention, there is the possibility of attentional modulation occurring in this case as well. We investigated whether distraction of attention from the moving targets would alter the relative frequency of each percept. During the observation of the streaming/bouncing motion event in the peripheral visual field, visual attention was disrupted by an abrupt presentation of a visual distractor at various timings and locations (experiment 1; exogenous distraction of attention) or by the demand of an additional discrimination task (experiments 2 and 3; endogenous distraction of attention). Both types of distractions of attention increased the frequency of the bouncing percept and decreased that of the streaming percept. These results suggest that attention may facilitate the perception of object motion as continuing in the same direction as in the past.

Attention↗
PubMed1999

Binocular rivalry and visual awareness: the role of attention.

When the right eye and the left eye view dissimilar scenes, the observer does not experience a stable superimposed percept of the images presented to the two eyes, but instead perceives an alternation between the images seen by each eye. A critical question confronting this robust and intriguing phenomenon of binocular rivalry is how the visual system selects the image to be perceived (dominant). The current main-stream literature emphasizes a bottom-up explanation in which the rivalry stimulus with the higher contour strength has the advantage, and becomes dominant in rivalry. Nevertheless, some workers in the past have favored an attention-selection explanation for binocular rivalry. We investigated the role of attention in binocular rivalry by employing novel psychophysical paradigms which capitalized on several established phenomena (e.g. the Cheshire Cat effect, attention cueing, pop-out effect). Our results revealed two major aspects of attention modulation in binocular rivalry. We found that a dominant image is less likely to be suppressed when voluntary attention is directed to it. This suggests the role of voluntary attention in retaining the dominant image in visual awareness. Second, a rivalry stimulus is more likely to become dominant if accompanied by a pop-out cue (in the same eye and proximity). Since a pop-out cue attracts involuntary attention to its location/eye, this result suggests that cue-mediated involuntary attention can promote the ability of a rivalry stimulus to reach visual awareness.

Attention↗
PubMed2000

Dissociation of response conflict, attentional selection, and expectancy with functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Two different attentional networks have been associated with visuospatial attention and conflict resolution. In most situations either one of the two networks is active or both are increased in activity together. By using functional magnetic resonance imaging and a flanker task, we show conditions in which one network (anterior attention system) is increased in activity whereas the other (visuospatial attention system) is reduced, showing that attentional conflict and selection are separate aspects of attention. Further, we distinguish between neural systems involved in different forms of conflict. Specifically, we dissociate patterns of activity in the basal ganglia and insula cortex during simple violations in expectancies (i.e., sudden changes in the frequency of an event) from patterns of activity in the anterior attention system specifically correlated with response conflict as evidenced by longer response latencies and more errors. These data provide a systems-level approach in understanding integrated attentional networks.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

The covert orienting of visual attention following severe traumatic brain injury.

Attentional problems have frequently been identified following traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) using both clinical assessments and self-report measures. Unfortunately, most measures of attention do not enable us to determine the underlying basis of these attentional deficits. One exception is Posner's Covert Orienting of Attention Task (COAT), which is designed to identify some of the fundamental mental operations underlying attention. This study sought to determine whether the COAT task could identify discrete attentional deficits following TBI beyond those caused by reduced speed of information processing. Thirty five patients who had sustained a severe TBI were compared to 35 age-matched controls. Results revealed that, although the reaction times of the patients with TBI were significantly slower than the controls, there were no differences between the two groups in terms of their ability to disengage, move, and engage their attention. The introduction of a secondary (language) task produced no significant difference between the two groups on the COAT task. However, there was a significant difference between the two groups on the language-based task, suggesting a deficit in auditory-verbal attention under dual task conditions.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Attention and hypnosis: neural substrates and genetic associations of two converging processes.

Although attention is a central theme in psychological science, hypnosis researchers rarely incorporate attentional findings into their work. As with other biological systems, attention has a distinct anatomy that carries out basic psychological functions. Specific brain injuries, states, and drugs can all influence attentional networks. Investigation into these networks using modern neuroimaging techniques has revealed important mechanisms involved in attention. In this age of genomics, genetic approaches can supplement these neuroimaging techniques. As genotyping becomes an affordable and technologically viable complement to phenotyping, exploratory genetic assays offer insights into the genetic bases of both attention and hypnotizability. This paper discusses relevant aspects of attentional mechanisms and their underlying neuroanatomy as they relate to hypnosis. Underlining data from attentional networks, neuroimaging, and genetics, these findings should help to explain individual differences in hypnotizability and the neural systems subserving hypnosis.

Arousal↗
PubMed1992

Attentional deficits following closed-head injury.

Aimed to assess, in the light of current attentional theories, the nature of the attentional deficit in a group of severely traumatically head-injured subjects, relative to a group of orthopaedic rehabilitation patients, and to establish which neuropsychological measures best reflected the deficit. Three separate studies were conducted in order to meet these aims. The first study focused on selective attention; the second, on vigilance or sustained attention; the third, on the Supervisory Attentional System. Results provided no evidence for the presence of deficits of focused attention, sustained attention, or supervisory attentional control, but ample evidence for the presence of a deficit in speed of information processing. Those neuropsychological measures shown to be the best measures of this deficit included the Symbol Digit Modalities Test, simple and choice reaction-time tasks, colour naming and word reading scores on the Stroop, and the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Sustained attention training for unilateral neglect: theoretical and rehabilitation implications.

Many studies have shown a co-variation of unilateral neglect with nonlateralised attentional functions. Recently, Posner has argued that there are two separate neural systems that influence the posterior attentional system which is presumed to be impaired in unilateral neglect, namely, the posterior system itself (located partly in the inferior parietal lobules) as well as a secondary modulatory sustained attention or vigilance system. This latter system is linked to the nor-epinephrine system, which is known to be more strongly represented in the right compared to the left hemisphere of the brain. If this hypothesis is true, then unilateral neglect should be improved by increasing activation of the sustained attention system. Eight patients suffering from chronic left unilateral neglect were trained to sustain their attention by a self-alerting procedure partially derived from Meichenbaum's self-instructional methods. Using a multiple-baseline-by-function design, as well as multiple-baseline-by-subject designs, statistically significant improvements in unilateral neglect as well in sustained attention were found following onset of sustained attention training, without corresponding improvements in control measures. Theoretical implications for the attentional underpinnings of unilateral neglect are discussed, as well as the rehabilitation implications of this training procedure.

Aged↗
PubMed1997

Evaluation of attention before and after 2 years of growth hormone treatment in intrauterine growth retarded children.

The objective of this study was to assess attention in children with short stature following intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR), at baseline and after 2 years of growth hormone (hGH) treatment. At baseline, all of the children had a birth height and a current height below the third centile. The attention measures (Sonneville Visual Attention Tasks: SVAT) of the IUGR group were compared with those of a comparison sample. In the baseline analyses, 48 children with IUGR and 119 comparison children were included; the 2-year follow-up analyses involved 41 children with IUGR and 68 comparison children. At baseline, children with IUGR showed deficits in divided, focused, and sustained attention. They were less accurate, exhibited more variability in reaction time, and performed more slowly and more impulsively than did the children in the comparison sample. After 2 years of hGH treatment, the IUGR group exhibited deficits in divided and sustained attention. They were still less accurate and showed more variability in reaction time and more impulsiveness. Current head circumference, the type of delivery, and global intelligence of children with IUGR were significantly correlated with attention measures. We hypothesize that short stature following IUGR and attention deficits are related, and that hGH treatment seems to have some beneficial effect on attentional capacity.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Remediation of "working attention" in mild traumatic brain injury.

Several studies have reported beneficial effects of treatments for attentional deficits following traumatic brain injury. Improvements in speed of processing appear to be less robust than improvements on non-speeded tasks, while several studies suggest greater benefits of training more complex forms of attention. The present study presents preliminary results concerning the effectiveness of an intervention for attentional deficits after mild traumatic brain injury. The treatment was based upon the conceptualization of deficits and interventions as a function of the central executive component of working memory, or "working attention" . A prospective, case-comparison design was employed comparing four treatment participants with an untreated comparison sample. Treatment tasks were derived from experimental procedures which have been demonstrated to elicit working memory demands, consisting of "n-back", random generation, and dual-task procedures. The intervention emphasized the conscious and deliberate use of strategies to effectively allocate attentional resources and manage the rate of information during task performance. Treatment participants were more likely to exhibit clinically significant improvement on measures of attention and reduction of self-reported attentional difficulties in their daily functioning. Further analysis suggested that the principal effect of the intervention was on working memory, i.e. the ability to temporarily maintain and manipulate information during task performance, with no direct effect on processing speed. The results are consistent with a strategy training model of remediation, in which the benefits of treatment are due to participants' improved ability to compensate for residual deficits and adopt strategies for the more effective allocation of their remaining attentional resources.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Divided attention in bimanual aiming movements: effects on movement accuracy.

The role of focusing attention on one limb or both limbs in a bimanual aiming task was investigated in two experiments. Participants were prompted to focus attention on either limb (Experiment 1) or were free to choose their attentional strategy (Experiment 2). Fifty-two college-aged participants made quick, bimanual lever reversals in the sagittal plane over 20 degrees and 60 degrees in 210 ms to the reversal point. In both experiments, spatial accuracy was better when participants focused their attention on a single limb compared to the nonattended limb and when they paid attention to both limbs. However, no differences were shown on a no-knowledge of results (KR) retention test when participants paid attention to both limbs. In the second experiment, differences were maintained on a no-KR retention test when participants continued to select their own attentional strategy, although the statistical effect was smaller than in the first experiment. The findings suggested that the movement parameter selection process benefited from attentional focus.

Adolescent↗