Acute caffeine consumption enhances the executive control of visual attention in habitual consumers

Recent work suggests that a dose of 200–400 mg caffeine can enhance both vigilance and the executive control of visual attention in individuals with low caffeine consumption profiles. The present study seeks to determine whether individuals with relatively high caffeine consumption profiles would show similar advantages. To this end, we examined the effects of four caffeine doses (0 mg, 100 mg, 200 mg, 400 mg) on low- and high-level visual attention in individuals with high consumption profiles (n = 36), in a double-blind study using a repeated measures design. Results from the Attention Network Test indicated that caffeine enhanced both vigilance and the executive control of visual attention, but only at the highest administered dose (400 mg). We demonstrate that in habitual consumers high doses of caffeine can produce beneficial changes in visual attention. These results carry implications for the theorized interactions between caffeine, adenosine and dopamine in brain regions mediating visual attention.     

Determinants of assessing efficiency within auditory attention networks

The attention network test (ANT) assesses efficiency across alerting, orienting, and executive components of visual attention. This study examined approaches to assessing auditory attention networks, and performance was compared to the visual ANT. Results showed (1) alerting was sufficiently elicited in a pitch discrimination and sound localization task, although these effects were unrelated, (2) weak orienting of attention was elicited through pitch discrimination, which varied based on ISI and conflict level, but robust orienting of attention was found through sound localization, and (3) executive control was sufficiently assessed in both pitch discrimination and sound localization tasks, but these effects were unrelated. Correlation analysis suggested that, unlike alerting and orienting, sound localization auditory executive control functions tap a shared attention network system. Overall, the results suggest that auditory ANT measures are largely task and modality specific, with sound localization offering potential to assess all three attention networks in a single task.     

Acute caffeine consumption enhances the executive control of visual attention in habitual consumers

Recent work suggests that a dose of 200–400 mg caffeine can enhance both vigilance and the executive control of visual attention in individuals with low caffeine consumption profiles. The present study seeks to determine whether individuals with relatively high caffeine consumption profiles would show similar advantages. To this end, we examined the effects of four caffeine doses (0 mg, 100 mg, 200 mg, 400 mg) on low- and high-level visual attention in individuals with high consumption profiles (n = 36), in a double-blind study using a repeated measures design. Results from the Attention Network Test indicated that caffeine enhanced both vigilance and the executive control of visual attention, but only at the highest administered dose (400 mg). We demonstrate that in habitual consumers high doses of caffeine can produce beneficial changes in visual attention. These results carry implications for the theorized interactions between caffeine, adenosine and dopamine in brain regions mediating visual attention.     

万拉法新对抑郁症注意网络功能的影响

目的 研究抑郁症的注意网络状况及抑制神经递质再摄取的药物万拉法新对其的影响,探索神经递质与注意网络的关系。方法 对32例应用万拉法新治疗的抑郁症患者治疗前及疗后6周进行注意网络测定和临床症状评分。结果 与正常组比较,抑郁组的警觉网络和执行控制网络效率差异有显著性,定向网络效率差别无显著性。警觉网络效率与HAMD评分的睡眠障碍因子分呈负相关。治疗后,抑郁组的警觉效率显著增加,其改善与睡眠障碍的好转呈正相关。执行控制网络效率,平均反应时和临床症状评分均较治疗前显著降低,定向网络效率无变化。结论 抑郁症患者存在警觉和执行控制注意网络的异常,万拉法新可选择性地改善警觉和执行控制注意网络的异常而不影响其定向网络     

Focus on the positive: Anxiety modulates the effects of emotional stimuli on hemispheric attention

People with high levels of trait anxiety are said to orient attention selectively to threatening stimuli ( and ), but this effect is sometimes difficult to replicate. We suggest a reason for this difficulty is that typical tests of the spatial attention bias in anxiety failed to consider together: (1) the differential effects of positive and threatening stimuli on attention in anxiety, (2) the separate contributions of each hemisphere to the attention bias, and (3) whether the attention bias in anxiety is restricted to orienting or can be observed more strongly in the conflict or alerting networks of attention. We compared the effects of schematic angry, happy, and neutral face cues using a lateralized version of Posner’s Attention Network Task (Lateralized Attention Network Test) which distinguishes spatial Orienting Cost (due to an invalid cue; disengagement) from spatial Orienting Benefit (due to a valid cue; hypervigilance), and which considers executive Conflict resolution and Alerting in addition to spatial Orienting in each hemisphere separately. We tested participants with high and low trait anxiety measured by the STAI-TA (Spielberger, Gorsuch, & Lushene, 1983). Surprisingly, happy face cues rather than angry face cues interacted with target visual field and participant level of anxiety. Happy face cues presented to participants with low anxiety elicited maximal Orienting Benefit and minimal Orienting Cost for targets presented to the left visual field. Anxious individuals failed to benefit from happy cues in the left visual field. We suggest that lateralized positive cues can provide a more sensitive index of attention changes in anxiety than is provided by centrally-presented threatening cues.     

Age-Related Changes and the Attention Network Task: An Examination of Alerting,Orienting, and Executive Function

ABSTRACT

The effects of aging on alerting, orienting, and executive function were examined with the use of the Attention Network Task, which combines the Posner spatial cuing task and the Eriksen flanker task into a single procedure. We found that older adults showed significantly less alerting than young adults in response to a warning cue, although there were no age differences in orienting or executive function once processing speed was taken into account. We suggest that age differences in alerting may depend in part upon the presentation duration or persistence of the warning cue.     

Age-related changes and the attention network task: an examination of alerting, orienting, and executive function

The effects of aging on alerting, orienting, and executive function were examined with the use of the Attention Network Task, which combines the Posner spatial cuing task and the Eriksen flanker task into a single procedure. We found that older adults showed significantly less alerting than young adults in response to a warning cue, although there were no age differences in orienting or executive function once processing speed was taken into account. We suggest that age differences in alerting may depend in part upon the presentation duration or persistence of the warning cue.     

Upbeat and happy: Arousal as an important factor in studying attention

The present study examined the effects of music-induced mood changes on different components of visual attention. Affective valence (positive vs. negative) and arousal (high vs. low) were manipulated by having participants listen to one of four versions of a Mozart Sonata that varied in mode (major or minor) and tempo (fast or slow). Attention was measured in three domains—alerting, orienting, and executive control. Affective valence and arousal had an effect on executive control, but not on alerting or orienting. Individuals who experienced positive valence had less efficient control over their responses than those who experienced negative valence, but only when arousal levels were high. Positive and negative valence did not influence executive control measures when arousal levels were low. These findings demonstrate that affective valence and arousal interact with one another to influence the processing of items in visual attention.     

Attention network test — The impact of social information on executive control,alerting and orienting

According to the attention network approach, attention is best understood in terms of three functionally and neuroanatomically distinct networks — alerting, orienting, and executive attention. An important question is whether social information influences the efficiency of these networks. Using the same structure as the Attentional Network Test (ANT), we developed a variant of this test to examine attentional effects in response to stimuli with and without social-cognitive content. Fish, drawings or photographs of faces looking to the left or right were used as target stimuli. Results collected from twenty-four university students showed that photographs of faces positively affected attentional orienting and executive control, whereas reduced the efficiency of alerting, as compared to both face drawings and fish. These results support the status of human faces as a special class of visual stimuli for the human attentional systems.     

The effect of music-induced mood on attentional networks

Attention network theory suggests that there are three separate neural networks that execute the discrete functions of alerting, orienting, and executive attention. Previous research on the influence of mood on attention has shown subtle and inconsistent results. The attention network theory may aid in clarifying the influence of mood on attention. The present study investigated the influence of mood on attentional networks in a normal population. Participants performed the Attention Network Test (ANT), which provides functional measures of alerting, orienting, and executive attention. Positive or negative mood was induced by listening to music with a positive or negative valence, respectively; neutral mood was induced by reading a collection of basic facts about China. The results revealed that negative mood led to a significantly higher alerting efficiency relative to other moods, while there were no significant mood effects on orienting or executive attention efficiency. According to the algorithm underlying the ANT, the higher alerting efficiency in the negative mood condition can be attributed to relatively greater benefits of cueing effects. The findings are discussed in the context of the noradrenergic system and of evolutionary significance. Specifically, the increase in the alerting function during negative mood states may be due to the modulation effect of negative mood on the noradrenergic system, and/or to the survival benefit resulting from an increase in automatic vigilance towards negative information. The current results suggest that as the influence of negative mood on attention appears to specifically consist in an enhanced alerting function, it may not be found in studies where the three attentional networks are not dissociated.     

Two types of behavioral inhibition: Relations to effortful control and attention in school children

This study aimed to examine the relationship of two types of behavioral inhibition, social inhibition and nonsocial inhibition, to effortful control and attention in 7–9-year olds. Social and nonsocial inhibition and effortful control were assessed by questionnaires. The child version of the Attention Network Task was used to measure attention including alerting, orienting and executive attention. Results indicated that in girls, social inhibition was negatively related to effortful control and alerting, while nonsocial inhibition was positively related to orienting; there was an interaction between social and nonsocial inhibition in predicting executive attention in boys. Thus, it is of great significance to differentiate social and nonsocial inhibition when examining the association between behavioral inhibition and effortful control and attention in school-age children.     

Mixing measures: testing an assumption of the attention network test

The human attention system has been subdivided into three networks that appear to be functionally and anatomically independent: alerting, orienting, and executive control. The Attention Network Test (ANT) is a quick and easy tool that measures the efficiency of these three networks by averaging reaction time and accuracy scores across several different cue and flanker conditions. Using ANOVAs and correlation procedures, we found that (a) intranetwork correlations were surprisingly low, and (b) Cue X Flanker interactions were found within alerting, orienting, and executive control measures. Taken together, these findings highlight the interaction between the three networks and the potential difficulty in accurately measuring them with this task.     

A longitudinal analysis of the attention networks in 6- to 11-year-old children

Attention is critical for everyday functioning. Posner and Petersen’s model of attention describes three neural networks involved in attention control—the alerting network for arousal, the orienting network for selecting sensory input and reorienting attention, and the executive network for the regulatory control of attention. No longitudinal research has examined relative change in these networks in children. A modified version of the attention network task (ANT) was used to examine changes in the three attention networks, three times over 12 months, in 114 6-, 8- and 10-year-olds. Findings showed that the alerting network continued to develop over this period, the orienting network had stabilized by 6 years, and the conflict network had largely stabilized by 7 years. The reorienting of attention was also assessed using invalid cues, which showed a similar developmental trajectory to the orienting attention network and had stabilized by 6 years. The results confirm that age 6 to 7 years is a critical period in the development of attention, in particular executive attention. The largest improvement over the evaluation period was between 6 and 7 years; however, subtle changes were found in attention beyond 8 years of age.     

Hemispheric asymmetry in the efficiency of attentional networks

Despite the fact that hemispheric asymmetry of attention has been widely studied, a clear picture of this complex phenomenon is still lacking. The aim of the present study was to provide an efficient and reliable measurement of potential hemispheric asymmetries of three attentional networks, i.e. alerting, orienting and executive attention. Participants (N=125) were tested with the Lateralized Attention Network Test (LANT) that allowed us to investigate the efficiency of the networks in both visual fields (VF). We found a LVF advantage when a target occurred in an unattended location, which seems to reflect right hemisphere superiority in control of the reorienting of attention. Furthermore, a LVF advantage in conflict resolution was observed, which may indicate hemispheric asymmetry of the executive network. No VF effect for alerting was found. The results, consistent with the common notion of general right hemisphere dominance for attention, provide a more detailed account of hemispheric asymmetries of the attentional networks than previous studies using the LANT task.     

Age-related differences in attentional networks of alerting and executive control in young, middle-aged, and older Chinese adults

Previous studies suggest that aging is associated with impairment of attention. However, it is not known whether this represents a global attentional deficit or relates to a specific attentional network. We used the attention network test to examine three groups of younger, middle-aged, and older participants with respect to the efficiency of three anatomically defined attentional networks: alerting network, orienting network, and executive control network. Age-related change was found to have the greatest effect on the executive network and the least effect on the alerting network as well as on overall mean response time. Impairment of the orienting network was found to be insignificant. Age-related deterioration of the prefrontal lobe, the dopaminergic system, and function of specific genes may explain the age-related changes in executive attention, which occur after the fourth decade of life.     

Efficiency and interactions of alerting,orienting and executive networks: The impact of imperative stimulus type

The Attention Network Test (ANT) generates measures of three attention networks: alerting, orienting and executive control. Arrows have been generally used as imperative stimuli in the different versions of this paradigm. However, it is unknown whether the directional nature of these stimuli can modulate the efficiency of the executive control and its interaction with alerting and orienting. We developed three ANT variants to examine attentional effects in response to directional and non-directional stimuli. Arrows (ANTI-A), colored fruits (ANTI-F) and black geometrical-shape (ANTI-G) were used as imperative stimuli (i.e., flanker stimuli). Data collected from fifty-two university students, in two experiments, showed that arrows stimuli produced a greater interference effect and a greater orienting effect as compared to the other stimuli. Moreover, only arrows modulated the interaction between executive control and orienting: a reduced flanker effect in spatially cued trials was only observed in ANTI-A. These results suggest that the directional value of the stimuli increases the conflict and modulates the efficiency of executive control and its interaction with orienting network.     

Upbeat and happy: arousal as an important factor in studying attention

The present study examined the effects of music-induced mood changes on different components of visual attention. Affective valence (positive vs. negative) and arousal (high vs. low) were manipulated by having participants listen to one of four versions of a Mozart Sonata that varied in mode (major or minor) and tempo (fast or slow). Attention was measured in three domains-alerting, orienting, and executive control. Affective valence and arousal had an effect on executive control, but not on alerting or orienting. Individuals who experienced positive valence had less efficient control over their responses than those who experienced negative valence, but only when arousal levels were high. Positive and negative valence did not influence executive control measures when arousal levels were low. These findings demonstrate that affective valence and arousal interact with one another to influence the processing of items in visual attention.     

Attention Network Performance and Psychopathic Symptoms in Early Adolescence: An ERP Study

Reaction time (RT) and event-related potential (ERP) measures were used to examine the relationships between psychopathic symptoms and three major attention networks (alerting, orienting, and executive attention) among a community sample of youth. Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD; Frick and Hare 2001) total and subscale scores were negatively correlated with ERP measures of attentional alerting, indicating that youth with psychopathic symptoms had difficulty using warning cues to prepare for upcoming targets. APSD total scores were not related to performance on measures of orienting or executive attention, although weaker executive attention was found among youth with higher scores on the Impulsivity subscale. These findings support attention-based models of psychopathy and provide evidence of specific deficits in attentional alerting among youth with psychopathic traits. Deficiencies in attentional alerting may be related to noradrenergic functioning and may have cascading effects on higher order cognitive and affective processing.     

情绪对注意功能网络的调制

情绪性注意是一种对具有情绪意义的刺激进行选择和加工的注意.由于刺激的情绪效价能调制人脑的感知和注意系统,因而,与对中性刺激的注意相比,情绪性注意的神经机制更加复杂.较早的研究显示,杏仁核对感知皮层的调制对情绪性注意起关键作用.近期的证据表明,杏仁核对注意功能网络的调制可能是其重要的神经机制.本文梳理了相关领域的研究证据,主要强调情绪性刺激对注意的警觉、定向和执行控制网络的调制,发现情绪性注意加工的认知神经机制可能涉及一个以杏仁核为核心的多重功能网络.     

The three attentional networks: on their independence and interactions

The present investigation was aimed to the study of the three attentional networks (Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Function) and their interactions. A modification of the task developed by Fan, McCandliss, Sommer, Raz, and Posner (2002) was used, in which a cost and benefit paradigm was combined with a flanker task and an alerting signal. We obtained significant interactions as predicted. The alerting network seemed to inhibit the executive function network (a larger flanker-congruency effect was found on trials where an alerting signal had been previously presented). The orienting network influenced the executive function network in a positive way (the flanker effect was smaller for cued than for uncued trials). Finally, alertness increased orienting (the cueing effect was bigger after the alerting signal). This last result, taken together with previous findings, points to an influence in the sense of a faster orienting under alertness, rather than a larger one. These results offer new insight into the functioning of the attentional system.