Sustained attention to a predictable,unengaging Go/No-Go task shows ongoing development between 6 and 11 years

Response time variability (RTV) is a useful measure of sustained attention; however, little is known about developmental changes in RTV at different temporal frequencies. Thirty-five 6-year-olds, 31 8-year-olds, and 37 10-year-olds completed the fixed-sequence Sustained Attention to Response Task on three occasions, six months apart. Fast Fourier Transform and ex-Gaussian analyses of response time (RT) data assessed momentary fluctuations in RT, gradual changes in RT, and very long responses, thought to reflect attentional control fluctuations, slow-shifting arousal, and infrequent lapses in attention, respectively. A half-by-half analysis measured within-occasion time-on-task effects. The 10-to 11-year-olds performed with less momentary fluctuations in RT, fewer long responses, and fewer commission and omission errors than the younger groups. This group performed well in the first half of the task but showed time-on-task effects on measures of momentary fluctuations in RT, very long responses, target sensitivity (d’), and commission errors. The 6- to 7-year-olds performed less well than the older groups, and showed time-on-task effects, on almost all measures. The 8- to- 9-year-olds mostly performed at an intermediate level compared with the other groups; however, this group performed with a similar level of momentary fluctuations in RT and very long responses as the 6- to 7-year-olds. These findings indicate that there is ongoing maturation of various aspects of sustained attention on a predictable task, with a period of relative stability in performance between 8 and 9 years of age.     

The Necessity of Thinking Historically – Heidegger After Nietzsche

ABSTRACT

This paper is concerned with the turning that occurs within the work of Martin Heidegger. In particular it seeks to reveal it as a turning that takes place within the notion of history as it is elaborated by Heidegger in the difference between Nietzsche and Hölderlin, that is, in the difference between philosophy and poetizing. It locates the necessity for such a turning in Heidegger's dissatisfaction with his own thinking up to the early 1930s (as suggested in his Black Notebooks). In particular the paper focuses on Heidegger's confrontation with Nietzsche over the question of nihilism in the hope of drawing out the different approaches of each thinker in trying to think this problem historically, and how this confrontation helps move Heidegger's thought towards a more poietical way of thinking. The paper concludes that Heidegger, in seeking to distinguish his thought from that of Nietzsche's, not only owes a debt to Nietzsche but that Heidegger's non-public texts of the late 1930s and early 1940s are also formally indebted to him.