Auditory attention switching: a developmental study

The developmental course of the ability to rapidly allocate attention was studied using a dichotic listening task with 8-year old, 11-year old and college age subjects. In this task, subjects were instructed to listen to one ear for predescribed targets and then were later signaled (on some trials) to switch their attention to the other ear. Reorientation was assessed by comparing the pattern of subjects' omission and intrusion errors on trials following a command to switch ears with the pattern of errors on no-switch trials. Older subjects were better able to reallocate their attention in accordance with task demands, with the greatest gains in performance occurring between ages 8 and 11. This developmental change appears to be generally continuous and quantitative in nature. Since successful performance of this task requires flexibility in subjects' ability to control their focus of attention, these results support the hypothesis that the basis of the developmental improvement in the ability to ignore irrelevant information is linked to the ability to use active attentional strategies.     

Intentional attention switching in dichotic listening: Exploring the efficiency of nonspatial and spatial selection

Using an auditory variant of task switching, we examined the ability to intentionally switch attention in a dichotic-listening task. In our study, participants responded selectively to one of two simultaneously presented auditory number words (spoken by a female and a male, one for each ear) by categorizing its numerical magnitude. The mapping of gender (female vs. male) and ear (left vs. right) was unpredictable. The to-be-attended feature for gender or ear, respectively, was indicated by a visual selection cue prior to auditory stimulus onset. In Experiment 1, explicitly cued switches of the relevant feature dimension (e.g., from gender to ear) and switches of the relevant feature within a dimension (e.g., from male to female) occurred in an unpredictable manner. We found large performance costs when the relevant feature switched, but switches of the relevant feature dimension incurred only small additional costs. The feature-switch costs were larger in ear-relevant than in gender-relevant trials. In Experiment 2, we replicated these findings using a simplified design (i.e., only within-dimension switches with blocked dimensions). In Experiment 3, we examined preparation effects by manipulating the cueing interval and found a preparation benefit only when ear was cued. Together, our data suggest that the large part of attentional switch costs arises from reconfiguration at the level of relevant auditory features (e.g., left vs. right) rather than feature dimensions (ear vs. gender). Additionally, our findings suggest that ear-based target selection benefits more from preparation time (i.e., time to direct attention to one ear) than gender-based target selection.     

Intentional switching of auditory attention between long and short sequential tone patterns

The current study focuses on auditory task switching, more precisely on switching attention between different temporal patterns of the same auditory stimulus. Tone sequences consisting of nine different pitch tones were presented aurally. Three repetitive short 3-tone patterns (local focus) were combined to a long pattern (global focus), and each could be either rising or falling, resulting in congruent or incongruent combinations. Participants were informed by a cue if they had to attend to the short or to the long pattern, and they indicated if the target pattern was rising or falling by pressing one of two keys. In two experiments, we investigated cued switches between the two attentional foci. Switch costs in reaction times and errors were observed when switching from the long to the short pattern but not when switching from the short to the long pattern. These asymmetric switch costs were reduced when participants had more time to prepare for the switch in a condition with a prolonged cue-stimulus interval. In addition, participants made more errors when global and local patterns did not correspond to each other (i.e., in incongruent trials) when attending to either of the patterns, but this congruency effect was not modulated by preparation time. The data suggest that the mechanisms of task goal prioritizing, as indicated by the asymmetric attention switch costs, are dissociable from those underlying stimulus selection, as indicated by the congruency effects.     

Context effects in the behavioral ratings of hyperactivity

It was proposed that parents of hyperactive children would observe more problems at home in some but not all home contexts. To test this hypothesis, parents of teacher-identified hyperactive and nonhyperactive children were asked to complete a context-specific behavioral rating scale (Werry, 1968). Hyperactive children were rated by their parents as changing activities, talking, interrupting, and exhibiting dependency more than nonhyperactive children. Furthermore, those differences between hyperactive and control children were observed primarily in the play and homework contexts.This research was supported by a National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH(32282).     

The effects of stimulant drugs on curiosity behaviors of hyperactive boys

The curiosity behaviors of 20 hyperactive boys, both on and off stimulant drugs, and in relation to 20 nonhyperactive boys, were assessed. Comparisons on object, manipulative, conceptual, perceptual, and reactive curiosity tasks indicated that stimulants reduced only the object curiosity task performance of hyperactive boys, although the level tended to remain above that of nonhyperactive boys. Also, hyperactive boys both on and off drugs tended to have lower conceptual curiosity scores than controls. Implications are discussed.     

Head-centred meridian effect on auditory spatial attention orienting

Six experiments examined the issue of whether one single system or separate systems underlie visual and auditory orienting of spatial attention. When auditory targets were used, reaction times were slower on trials in which cued and target locations were at opposite sides of the vertical head-centred meridian than on trials in which cued and target locations were at opposite sides of the vertical visual meridian or were not separated by any meridian. The head-centred meridian effect for auditory stimuli was apparent when targets were cued by either visual (Experiments 2, 3, and 6) or auditory cues (Experiment 5). Also, the head-centred meridian effect was found when targets were delivered either through headphones (Experiments 2, 3, and 5) or external loudspeakers (Experiment 6). Conversely, participants showed a visual meridian effect when they were required to respond to visual targets (Experiment 4). These results strongly suggest that auditory and visual spatial attention systems are indeed separate, as far as endogenous orienting is concerned.     

Visual attention in infants with perinatal brain damage: Evidence of the importance of anterior lesions

Shifts of visual attention can be studied in adults and infants by cueing responses to a particular spatial location. Earlier studies have shown that by seven months of age normal infants show a similar pattern of facilitation and inhibition to a cued spatial location as adults. In this study we report data from infants with perinatal lesions that include or exclude the left anterior quadrant. Results indicate that infants with left anterior lesions do not show facilitation to a cued spatial location in this task. In contrast, infants with posterior lesions showed the same pattern of performance as healthy subjects. While these findings differ from those obtained with adults, they are consistent with previous studies of children with perinatal lesions, and with findings from ERP studies with normal infants.     

Relationship among environmental and demographic variables and teacher-rated hyperactivity

This study assessed the role of environmental and demographic factors in the occurrence of teacher-rated hyperactivity. The subject group consisted of 79 hyperactive and 81 nonhyperactive children ranging from 5 to 12 years of age. Parents of the subjects were interviewed to obtain information regarding the environmental and demographic factors of sex, race, birth order, number of siblings, frequency of change of residence, income level, mother's age, father's age, educational level of mother, educational level of father, parents' marital status, and the method of child discipline used in the home. Comparison between the hyperactive and nonhyperactive groups suggested nonsignificant differences with the exception of sex (p<.001), in which the ratio of hyperactive males to hyperactive females was 51.The authors are grateful to Dr. Bruce Dunn for his critical suggestions.     

Stimulus-seeking behavior in hyperactive and nonhyperactive children

Auditory and visual stimulus-seeking behavior was measured in hyperactive and nonhyperactive youngsters. The design controlled for motor activity level. The results indicate that hyperactive children preferred auditory stimulation more than the control children. There were no differences in stimulus-seeking preferences in the visual modality. The groups did not differ in motor activity. It was concluded that abnormally high needs for stimulation are important in hyperactivity.The authors would like to express their appreciation to James Fogarty, Superintendent, Walter Galvin, Principal, and the many teachers, students, and parents of the Greene Avenue Learning Center of BOCES II in Sayville, New York for their cooperation and support in this study. We would also like to thank Susan O'Leary, Ph.D. Director of the Point of Woods Laboratory School and the students and parents for participation and support in this study.     

Effects of color stimulation and information on the copying performance of attention-problem adolescents

The optimal stimulation theory proposes that hyperactive children are less tolerant of lower levels of arousal than nonhyperactive children and should thus derive greater gains from stimulation added to repetitive copying tasks than do comparisons. To test this hypothesis, 16 adolescents, rating high on attention and behavior problems, were matched on the basis of age and poor handwriting performance to 16 controls. Matched pairs were randomly assigned to treatment order (high-stimulation colored letters followed in 2 weeks by low-stimulation black letters or the reverse order) and to level of information (color added to difficult letter parts or added to randomly selected letters), counterbalanced for treatment order and level of information within each order. Errors and activity were subjected to a mixed-design analysis of covariance, with IQ the covariate. The major findings indicated that attention-problem adolescents performed better with high-stimulation task stimuli than with low, relative to the opposite performance pattern of controls. Different responding was significant for experimental but not for control children.This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH32282 to the first author.     

Attaining and maintaining preparation: A comparison of attention in hyperactive,normal, and disturbed control children

The hypothesis that hyperactive children have a deficit in sustained attention was investigated. Eighteen children who had attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADDH), aged 7 to 11 years, were compared with children who had conduct disorder (n = 15), mixed conduct disorder and ADDH (n = 26), emotional disorder (n = 18), or learning disability (n = 22), and with normal controls (n = 15). The subjects were tested on three versions of the Continuous Performance Task. Sustained attention was assessed from performance with increasing time on task and from ability to prepare attention in response to a warning. Performance of all subjects deteriorated with increasing time and improved with the opportunity to prepare attention. Hyperactive subjects were not more adversely affected by increasing time, nor did they benefit less than controls from the opportunity to prepare attention. Data reanalysis after rediagnosis according to ICD-9 criteria did not change the results. This study did not confirm the hypothesis that hyperactive children have a unique sustained attention deficit.     

Task Switching and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

The main goal of the present set of studies was to examine the efficiency of executive control processes and, more specifically, the control processes involved in task set inhibition and preparation to perform a new task in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and non-ADHD children. This was accomplished by having ADHD children, both on and off medication, and non-ADHD children perform the task-switching paradigm, which involves the performance of two simple tasks. In nonswitch trials, an individual task is performed repeatedly for a number of trials. In switch trials, subjects must rapidly and accurately switch from one task to the other, either in a predictable or unpredictable sequence. Switch costs are calculated by subtracting performance on the nonswitch trials from performance on the switch trials. These costs are assumed to reflect the executive control processes required for the coordination of multiple tasks. ADHD children showed substantially larger switch costs than non-ADHD children. However, when on medication, the ADHD children's switch performance was equivalent to control children. In addition, medication was observed to improve the ADHD children's ability to inhibit inappropriate responses. These data are discussed in terms of models of ADHD and cognition.     

Spatial attention does improve temporal discrimination

It has recently been stated that exogenous attention impairs temporal-resolution tasks (Hein, Rolke, & Ulrich, 2006; Rolke, Dinkelbach, Hein, & Ulrich, 2008; Yeshurun, 2004; Yeshurun & Levy, 2003). In comparisons of performance on spatially cued trials versus neutral cued trials, the results have suggested that spatial attention decreases temporal resolution. However, when performance on cued and uncued trials has been compared in order to equate for cue salience, typically speed—accuracy trade-offs (SATs) have been observed, making the interpretation of the results difficult. In the present experiments, we aimed at studying the effect of spatial attention in temporal resolution while using a procedure to control for SATs. We controlled reaction times (RTs) by constraining the time to respond, so that response decisions would be made within comparable time windows. The results revealed that when RT was controlled, performance was impaired for cued trials as compared with neutral trials, replicating previous findings. However, when cued and uncued trials were compared, performance was actually improved for cued trials as compared with uncued trials. These results suggest that SAT effects may have played an important role in the previous studies, because when they were controlled and measured, the results reversed, revealing that exogenous attention does improve performance on temporal-resolution tasks.     

Preattentive control of serial auditory processing in dichotic listening

Dichotic listening performance was examined in an auditory selective attention task where subjects responded to occasional consonant-vowel (CV) or shaped broadband noise-burst (NB) targets in rapid serial auditory presentation (RASP). Trial types were randomized and included monaural CVs and NBs as well as dichotic CV-CV and CV-NB pairings. CVs were spoken by two different voices (male and female), and the two NB stimuli differed in their filter slopes at higher frequencies. The target was designated by stimulus category (/ba/, /da/, /ga/, or NB) and voice (e.g., "female /ba/"). Performance was compared for targets in the left and right ears on monaural and dichotic trials using accuracy and reaction time (RT) measures. Right ear advantages (REAs) were present for CV targets with either CV or NB distractors, but not for monaural CVs. The REA found for monaural NB targets was eliminated by CV distractors, yielding a left ear advantage (LEA) for the distractor effect of CVs on NB targets. The pattern of results suggests initial preprocessing of speech stimuli through phonetic feature analysis, followed by serial attentional processing of the objects in the auditory field. REAs are attributed to a rightward asymmetry in the preattentive control of auditory attention similar to that found in visual search.     

The assessment of impulsivity and mediating behaviors in hyperactive and nonhyperactive boys

Twenty boys (6–8 years) rated by their teachers as hyperactive and a matched sample of nonhyperactive boys performed a task that required them to withhold responding for a set time interval in order to be rewarded (DRL 6-second schedule). Half of each group worked on a one-button console while the other half was provided with additional collateral buttons. Results indicated that hyperactive children were relatively unable to perform efficiently on the task, and that this deficit endured regardless of age, IQ, or experimental condition. DRL was thus found to discriminate accurately between teacher-rated and parent-rated hyperactive and nonhyperactive children. Furthermore, a wide variety of self-generated mediating behaviors was observed, and it was determined that a child's DRL performance was related to the kind of mediating behaviors he displayed. Results are discussed in terms of the clinical assessment of hyperactivity and the training of impulsive children.This report is based upon a dissertation submitted by the author in partial fulfillment for the Ph.D. degree. The efforts of Malcolm Helper, David Hothersall, Donald R. Meyer, Marilyn Moody, and Charles Wenar are gratefully acknowledged. The investigation was conducted while the author was a National Research Fellow, supported by Public Health Service Training Grant No. 5 T32 MH14608-02 to The Ohio State University.     

Visuospatial attention in schizophrenia: deficits in broad monitoring

Although selective attention is thought to be impaired in people with schizophrenia (PSZ), prior research has found no deficit in the ability to select one location and withdraw attention from another. PSZ and healthy control subjects (HCS) performed a stimulus detection task in which one, two, or all four peripheral target locations were cued. When one or two locations were cued, both PSZ and HCS responded faster when the target appeared at a cued than uncued location. However, increases in the number of validly cued locations had much more deleterious effects on performance for PSZ than HCS, especially for targets of low contrast whose detection was more dependent on attention. PSZ also responded more slowly in trials with four cued locations relative to trials with one or two invalidly cued locations. Thus, visuospatial attention deficits in schizophrenia arise when broad monitoring is required rather than when attention must be focused narrowly.     

You can't always get what you want: The influence of unexpected task constraint on voluntary task switching

The current study assessed the effect that unexpected task constraint, following self-generated task choice, has on task switching performance. Participants performed a modified double-registration voluntary task switching procedure in which participants specified the task they wanted to perform, were presented with a cue that, on the majority of trials, confirmed the choice, and then performed the cued task. On a small portion of trials, participants were cued to perform a task that did not match their choice. Trials on which cues unexpectedly failed to match the chosen task were associated with costs. These costs were particularly large when participants chose to switch tasks but had to unexpectedly repeat the previous task. The results suggest that when participants choose to switch tasks, they prepare for that switch in anticipation of the stimulus, and the preparation is durable such that it cannot be readily undone.     

儿童外显视空间注意转移

采用提示范式探讨了三、六年级儿童的外显视空间注意转移。实验结果表明：内源性提示下儿童表现出显著的提示效度效应,其效度效应量在年龄组间没有显著差异;较短SOAs的外源性提示下,儿童表现出显著的提示效度效应;较长SOAs的外源性提示下儿童没有表现出返回抑制效应。用注意的过滤器理论和对象文件模型讨论了本研究的结果     

Types of private speech produced by hyperactive and nonhyperactive boys

Types and amount of private speech (audible talking that is not addressed to another person) were assessed during the free play of 16 hyperactive and 16 nonhyperactive boys. Verbalizations were coded into nine categories that denoted the boys' level of use of verbal control of their own behavior (Luria, 1961; Kohlberg, Yeager, & Hjertholm; 1968). Differences in amount and type of private speech between hyperactive and nonhyperactive boys were found to indicate that hyperactive boys may be presenting a specific or general cognitive lag in development. Treatment ramifications are discussed.     

A demonstration of direct access to colored stimuli following cueing by color

To test whether cueing by color can affect orienting without first computing the location of the cued color, the impact of reorienting on the validity effect was examined. In Experiment 1 subjects were asked to detect a black dot target presented at random on either of two colored forms. The forms started being presented 750 ms before the onset of a central cue (either an arrow or a colored square). In some proportion of the trials the colors switched locations 150 ms after cue onset, simultaneously with target onset. The color switch was not found to retard responses following a color cue more than following a location cue. Furthermore, it did not reduce the validity effect of the color cue: Though the validity effect of the location cue was quite larger than the validity effect of the color cue, both effects were additive with the presence/absence of a color switch. In Experiment 2, subjects were rather asked to detect a change in shape of one of the colored forms. In this case, color switch was found to affect performance even less following a color cue. The fact that across experiments, color switch did not retard neither responding nor orienting selectively in the color cue condition, indicates that when attention is set to a certain color, reorienting to a new object following color switch does not require re-computing the address of the cued color. That finding is argued to embarrass a strong space-based view of visual attention.