Search PubMed⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “ATTENTION”

Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources
PubMed1999

Covert orienting and focusing of attention in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Performance on the covert visuo-spatial attentional functions of orienting and focusing by a group of ADHD children (n = 20) was compared to that of age and sex-matched control children. In Experiment 1, responses were given to cued targets at valid and invalid locations. In Experiment 2, responses were given to targets presented in small, medium-sized or large visual field locations. For both experiments, the hypotheses that reaction times of ADHD children would be greater than those of control children and that performance would be asymmetrical, were supported. For Experiment 1, ADHD children showed bilaterally greater 'benefits' from having directed attention to the cued location and greater 'costs' in having to relocate the attentional focus than controls. In Experiment 2, the hypothesis that the function of focusing attention by ADHD children may show breakdown in the usual pattern of an increase in reaction time with focus area was partly supported by the finding of similar reaction times to targets presented in medium-sized and large regions of the left visual hemifield. These results have been interpreted as reflecting a stronger anchorage of attention by ADHD children upon a cued location and an inability to shift covert attention easily to an alternative location. The breakdown of the focusing function suggests adoption of similar time response sets across focus area size by the more compromised right hemisphere.

Attention↗
PubMed2004

Reduced electrodermal response to errors predicts poor sustained attention performance in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Research into attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has indicated abnormalities in electrodermal system activity (EDA) and separately, deficits in sustained attention. Here we asked whether reduced EDA in ADHD was consequential for the attention problems associated with this disorder. On a sustained attention task ADHD participants had higher overall error rates and exhibited a marked decrease in skin conductance responses (SCRs) to errors, relative to control children. Further, sustained attention errors were predicted by SCR amplitudes. Evidence of post-error slowing in both groups suggested comparable error awareness. It is proposed that attenuation of the normal autonomic response to errors reflects impairment in ADHD participants' psychological response to error significance and results in decreased behavioural correction and hence poorer sustained attention.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed1999

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and developmental right-hemisphere syndrome: congruence and incongruence of cognitive and behavioral aspects of attention.

We studied clinical aspects of attention in three groups: children with developmental right-hemisphere syndrome and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), children with ADHD only, and normal controls. The three groups (N = 54) were case-matched for age, sex, IQ, hand dominance, and socioeconomic status. ADHD was diagnosed clinically using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-III-Revised criteria and the Conners' Abbreviated Teacher Questionnaire. Additional aspects of attention and behavior were measured by the Child Behavior Checklist, a low-cognitive-load continuous performance task, and the visual target cancellation test (paper and pencil). Although the Child Behavior Checklist profile of attentional deficits in the two clinical groups was similar, we found that the developmental right-hemisphere syndrome group was more severely impaired on parameters of attention measured by the continuous performance task and visual target cancellation test than the children with ADHD. We conclude that the profile of attentional deficits in developmental right-hemisphere syndrome is different than that seen in children with ADHD only, possibly reflecting disparate neurologic underpinnings for the two syndromes.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Comparison of sustained and selective attention in children who have mental retardation with and without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Attention deficits have been demonstrated in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the general population, but little is known about attention deficits in children with ADHD who also have mental retardation. In this investigation, children with ADHD and mental retardation were compared to those with mental retardation without ADHD on tasks assessing sustained and selective attention. Although children with ADHD and mental retardation made fewer correct target detections and more commissions on a vigilance task, no compelling evidence emerged for sustained attention deficits. However, evidence did emerge that was suggestive of selective attention deficits in these children. Results also suggest that girls with mental retardation may be at a higher risk for ADHD than are girls in the general population.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Differential effects of clonidine, haloperidol, diazepam and tryptophan depletion on focused attention and attentional search.

As the catecholamines have long been implicated in attentional processes, the present investigation compared the effects of the mixed alpha 1/alpha 2 adrenoceptor agonist clonidine (CLO), the benzodiazepine diazepam (DZP), the D1/D2 antagonist haloperidol (HAL) and a low-tryptophan drink (Lo-TRP) on performance of tests of selective attention with distractors in four groups of young, healthy volunteers. Using a placebo-controlled, cross-over design, selective and dissociable effects on performance were found with each pharmacological manipulation. Specifically, CLO acted to broaden the focus of attention, HAL generally slowed reaction times during attentional search, and DZP and Lo-TRP produced differential effects on stimulus-response compatibility during attentional search. Furthermore, these results underline the usefulness of employing a single test with several neurochemical manipulations, allowing for a comprehensive analysis of the neurochemical basis of attention.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Spatial tuning of tactile attention modulates visual processing within hemifields: an ERP investigation of crossmodal attention.

Recent event-related brain potential (ERP) studies have revealed crossmodal links in spatial attention, but have not yet investigated differences in the spatial tuning of attention between task-relevant and irrelevant modalities. We studied the spatial distribution of attention in vision under conditions where participants were instructed to attend to the left or right-hand in order to detect infrequent targets, and to entirely ignore visual stimuli presented via LEDs at two eccentricities in the left or right hemifield. Hands were located close to two of these four LEDs in different blocks. Visual N1 amplitudes were enhanced when visual stimuli in the cued hemifield were close to the attended hand, relative to visual stimuli presented at the other location on the same side. These within-hemifield attentional modulations of visual processing demonstrate that crossmodal attention is not distributed diffusely across an entire hemifield. The spatial tuning of tactile attention transfers crossmodally to affect vision, consistent with spatial selection at a multimodal level of representation.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Attention dysfunction in cirrhotic patients: an inquiry on the role of executive control, attention orienting and focusing.

Attention alterations are reported in cirrhotics. Aiming at clarifying attention functioning in cirrhotics, an inquiry on the functioning of the anterior (AAS) and the posterior (PAS) attention system was performed. Thirty-six cirrhotics without overt hepatic encephalopathy (24 with EEG or TMT-A alterations) and 16 matched control subjects were enrolled. The AAS was studied by the Stroop task measuring selective attention control, the PAS was studied by the Posner task and the Focus task measuring automatic covert orienting and visual focusing of attention respectively. Cirrhotics presented a task-dependent psychomotor slowing (Stroop > Posner > Focus) with an increased percentage of errors in the incongruent condition of the Stroop task [F(1, 57) = 4.9, p < 0.03]. Class C patients had both a selective slowing [F(1, 33) = 4.3, p < 0.05] and an increased percentage of errors in the incongruent condition [F(1, 34) = 5.1, p < 0.05] compared to Class A-B patients and controls. The patients with an altered EEG performed the Stroop test significantly slowly than those without EEG alterations [F(1, 41) = 8.9, p < 0.01] and with a clear trend for a higher number of errors in the incongruent condition [F(1, 39) = 3.8, p < 0.06]. In contrast, attention orienting and focusing were maintained. In conclusion, the AAS is more sensitive than the PAS to the early stages of hepatic encephalopathy.

Attention↗
PubMed1992

Intermodal selective attention. II. Effects of attentional load on processing of auditory and visual stimuli in central space.

The effect of processing load on event-related brain potentials (ERPs) was investigated in an intermodal selective attention task in which subjects attended selectively to auditory or visual stimuli. Processing load was manipulated by requiring subjects to detect either difficult-to-detect (deviant) or easy-to-detect (DEVIANT) targets in separate blocks of trials. Attention to auditory stimuli was associated with negative (Nda, 90-170 msec) and positive (Pda, 190-270 msec) enhancements in the ERPs to auditory stimuli. The Nda increased in amplitude with increasing processing load. Deviant auditory stimuli occurring among auditory standard stimuli elicited frontally distributed mismatch negativities (MMNs). The MMN persisted during visual attention and was unaffected by visual processing load. However, the MMN to deviants but not DEVIANTS was enhanced in amplitude with auditory attention. Attention to visual stimuli resulted in positive (Pdv, latency 70-130 msec) and negative (Ndv, 170-270 msec) modulations of visual ERPs, that increased with increasing processing load. Prominent visual deviance-related negativities were observed at occipital and infero-temporal scalp sites (latencies 90-290 msec), but only to DEVIANT visual stimuli. The early MMN-like portion of the visual deviance-related negativity was independent of attention, with equal amplitudes during different auditory and visual conditions.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2004

Subjective experience and the attentional lapse: task engagement and disengagement during sustained attention.

Three experiments investigated the relationship between subjective experience and attentional lapses during sustained attention. These experiments employed two measures of subjective experience (thought probes and questionnaires) to examine how differences in awareness correspond to variations in both task performance (reaction time and errors) and psycho-physiological measures (heart rate and galvanic skin response). This series of experiments examine these phenomena during the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART, Robertson, Manly, Adrade, Baddeley, & Yiend, 1997). The results suggest we can dissociate between two components of subjective experience during sustained attention: (A) task unrelated thought which corresponds to an absent minded disengagement from the task and (B) a pre-occupation with one's task performance that seems to be best conceptualised as a strategic attempt to deploy attentional resources in response to a perception of environmental demands which exceed ones ability to perform the task. The implications of these findings for our understanding of how awareness is maintained on task relevant material during periods of sustained attention are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Selective attention to food-related stimuli in hunger: are attentional biases specific to emotional and psychopathological states, or are they also found in normal drive states?

Previous work has indicated that anxiety disorders and eating disorders are associated with selective processing of stimuli relevant to patients' concerns (e.g. Mathews and MacLeod, 1994; Annual Review of Psychology, 45, 25-50; Channon et al., 1988; British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 27, 259-260). A dot probe task was used to investigate whether attentional biases are also a feature of a normal drive state. Specifically, we examined whether hunger is associated with biases in selective attention and in pre-attentive processes for food-relevant stimuli. Subjects with high levels of hunger showed a greater attentional bias for food-related words presented in a suprathreshold exposure condition (words shown for 500 msec), in comparison with those with low hunger. There was no evidence in the present study of a hunger-related bias in pre-attentive processes (i.e. when words were shown for 14 msec and masked). Results suggest that a non-emotional motivational state, such as hunger, is associated with a bias in certain aspects of information processing, such as selective attention, for stimuli that are relevant to the motivational state. Findings are discussed in relation to recent research into emotion-related cognitive biases.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Differential cortical acetylcholine release in rats performing a sustained attention task versus behavioral control tasks that do not explicitly tax attention.

The present study used microdialysis techniques to compare acetylcholine release in the frontoparietal cortex of rats performing in a task requiring sustained attention with that of rats performing in two control procedures. The two control procedures were a fixed-interval 9-s schedule of reinforcement assessing primarily the effects of operant responding and comparable reward rates, and an operant procedure designed to test the effects of lever extension to prompt responding. These two control procedures involved comparable sensory-motor and motivational variables to those of the sustained attention task, but did not explicitly tax attentional processes. Performance of the sustained attention task was associated with a significant increase in cortical acetylcholine efflux, reaching a maximum of nearly 140%. Performance of the two control procedures was associated with significantly smaller (approximately 50%) increases in cortical acetylcholine release. This robust dissociation between attentional and control performance-associated increases in cortical acetylcholine release resulted, in part, from the elimination of the pre-task transfer of the animals into the operant chambers and the associated increases in acetylcholine release observed in previous studies. The present results support the hypothesis that demands on attentional performance, as opposed to the frequency of lever pressing, reward delivery and other task-related variables, selectively activate the basal forebrain corticopetal cholinergic system.

Acetylcholine↗
PubMed2001

Attentional set modulates visual areas: an event-related potential study of attentional capture.

The present experiment offers event-related potential evidence suggesting that modulation of neural activity in the visual cortex underlies top-down attentional capture by irrelevant cues. Participants performed a covert visual search task where they identified the unique stimulus in a brief, four-location display. Targets defined uniquely by color or onset were run in separate blocks, encouraging observers to adopt different attentional sets in each block. In Experiment 1, a brief, white, abrupt-onset cue highlighted one of the locations 100 or 200 ms prior to the target display. In Experiment 2, the cue display consisted of three white and one red cues simultaneously presented at the four locations. In both experiments, participants were informed that there was no predictive relation between the location of the cue and that of the target. Reaction times were dependent on the location of the preceding cue (i.e. attention was captured), but only in those blocks where the cue shared the uniquely relevant target feature. Evoked potentials over the right hemisphere were modulated during the attention-capturing blocks just prior to the cue's appearance. Additionally, the N1 wave elicited by the cue was enhanced over occipital regions during the attention-capturing blocks. These findings support the notion that attentional capture with peripheral cues is not simply reflexive but is modulated by top-down processes.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Caregiver attention-focusing and children's attention-sharing behaviours as predictors of later verbal IQ in very low birthweight children.

Specific relationships between verbal and nonverbal aspects of caregiver attention-focusing events and later verbal IQ were investigated for a risk sample of 26 very low birthweight [VLBW], preterm [PT] children. Videotaped interactions between VLBW, PT children at 2;0 and their caregivers were coded for caregiver attention-focusing speech and/or caregiver attention-focusing gestures (display, demonstration and pointing), caregiver gesture-speech combinations, and for child attention-sharing through gesture and social gaze. To investigate the specific effects of caregiver and child interactional factors, analyses statistically controlled for cognitive status. Simultaneous multiple regression analyses found that overall caregiver attention-focusing involving gesture, child attention sharing behaviours, and cognitive status each significantly and uniquely contributed to verbal IQ at 3;0. Further analyses contrasted the contributions of caregiver gesture with relevant descriptive speech, caregiver gesture with no speech/nondescriptive speech, and caregiver pointing. Results of these analyses suggest that caregiver gesture with relevant descriptive speech makes a unique and positive contribution to later language performance.

Attention↗
PubMed2005

Usability of a theory of visual attention (TVA) for parameter-based measurement of attention II: evidence from two patients with frontal or parietal damage.

Based on a 'Theory of Visual Attention' (TVA), whole and partial report of brief letter arrays is presented as a diagnostic tool to estimate four clinically significant attentional components: perceptual processing speed, visual working memory storage capacity, efficiency of top-down control, and spatial distribution of attention. The procedure used was short enough to be applicable within a standard clinical setting. Two brain-damaged patients, selected based on lesion location and neuropsychological test profile, were compared to a control group of 22 healthy subjects. One patient with a right inferior parietal lesion showed a pattern of non-spatially and spatially lateralized attention deficits that is typically found in neglect patients. Results from the second patient supported the decisive role of superior frontal brain structures for top-down control of visual attention. This double dissociation supports the hypothesis that, even with a short version of whole and partial report, valid and meaningful results can be obtained in the neuropsychological assessment of attention deficits. The potential and constraints of TVA-based parameter estimation for the clinical application are discussed.

Attention↗
PubMed2000

Attention and joint attention in preschool children with autism.

Three experiments examined the role of attention in explaining dyadic (child-adult) and triadic (child-adult-object) joint attention difficulties in autism. Experiments 1 and 2 investigated children's ability to orient to an adult's attention bid and to follow the direction of a human or nonhuman cue. Experiment 3 tested ability to disengage and shift attention to objects. Results showed autism-specific difficulties at both dyadic and triadic levels. Children with autism were less responsive than developmentally delayed controls in orienting to attention bids and in following a human head-turn cue yet had no difficulty in shifting attention and were faster overall in orienting to targets. Results suggest a specific developmental delay in which children with autism rely on the presence of objects in the visual field to guide action. The relation between this problem and autistic children's difficulties with human communicative signals is discussed.

Attention↗
PubMed2002

Anxiety-related attentional biases and their regulation by attentional control.

This study examined the role of self-reported attentional control in regulating attentional biases related to trait anxiety. Simple detection targets were preceded by cues labeling potential target locations as threatening (likely to result in negative feedback) or safe (likely to result in positive feedback). Trait anxious participants showed an early attentional bias favoring the threatening location 250 ms after the cue and a late bias favoring the safe location 500 ms after the cue. The anxiety-related threat bias was moderated by attentional control at the 500-ms delay: Anxious participants with poor attentional control still showed the threat bias, whereas those with good control were better able to shift from the threatening location. Thus, skilled control of voluntary attention may allow anxious persons to limit the impact of threatening information.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Stimulus-driven attentional capture and attentional control settings.

Jonides and Yantis (1988) found that abrupt-onset singletons capture attention in visual search when onset is orthogonal to the target's defining and reported attributes and that color and brightness singletons do not. They concluded that abrupt onset may be unique in capturing visual attention. Folk, Remington, and Johnston (1992) challenge this conclusion and argue that (a) the occurrence of attentional capture is contingent on the adoption of an appropriate attentional control setting by the observer and (b) properties other than onset (in particular, color) can capture attention involuntarily. In this article, each of these claims is critically evaluated, and it is argued that the results reported by Folk et al., though important, do not definitively corroborate either one. The available evidence concerning stimulus-driven attentional capture is summarized, and 3 empirical generalizations that characterize the evidence are advanced.

Attention↗
PubMed1998

Stimulus-driven attentional capture is contingent on attentional set for displaywide visual features.

This research showed that the current criterion for stimulus-driven attentional capture is not sufficient to rule out goal-directed processes that are critical for producing attentional capture. This was shown by demonstrating a contingency between displaywide visual features (i.e., features that signal the appearance of the task-relevant target display as a whole) and the features that capture attention. In Experiment 1, the target display was signaled by both color and onset; in Experiment 2, the target display was signaled only by onset. As expected, Experiment 1 showed that task-irrelevant color and onset distractors both captured attention, whereas Experiment 2 showed that only onset distractors captured attention. These contingencies suggest that the strongest evidence currently available for stimulus-driven attentional capture may be caused by goal-directed processes.

Analysis of Variance↗