Infants' visual sustained attention is higher during joint play than solo play: is this due to increased endogenous attention control or exogenous stimulus capture?

Sam V Wass; Kaili Clackson; Stanimira D Georgieva; Laura Brightman; Rebecca Nutbrown; Victoria Leong

doi:10.1111/desc.12667

Longitudinal touchscreen use across early development is associated with faster exogenous and reduced endogenous attention control

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-81775-7 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Ana Maria Portugal ◽

Rachael Bedford ◽

Celeste H. M. Cheung ◽

Luke Mason ◽

Tim J. Smith

Keyword(s):

Attention Control ◽

Exogenous Attention ◽

Endogenous Attention ◽

Peak Period ◽

High Exposure ◽

Saccade Task ◽

Video Gamers ◽

Attentional Difficulties ◽

Future Work

AbstractChildhood screen time is associated with both attentional difficulties (for television viewing) and benefits (in action video gamers), but few studies have investigated today’s pervasive touchscreen devices (e.g. smartphones and tablets), which combine salient features, interactive content, and accessibility from toddlerhood (a peak period of cognitive development). We tested exogenous and endogenous attention, following forty children who were stable high (HU) or low (LU) touchscreen users from toddlerhood to pre-school. HUs were slower to disengage attention, relative to their faster baseline orienting ability. In an infant anti-saccade task, HUs displayed more of a corrective strategy of orienting faster to distractors before anticipating the target. Results suggest that long-term high exposure to touchscreen devices is associated with faster exogenous attention and concomitant decreases in endogenous attention control. Future work is required to demonstrate causality, dissociate variants of use, and investigate how attention behaviours found in screen-based contexts translate to real-world settings.

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Effect of attention control on sustained attention during induced anxiety

Cognition & Emotion ◽

10.1080/02699931.2015.1024614 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 30 (4) ◽

pp. 700-712 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Christian Grillon ◽

Oliver J. Robinson ◽

Ambika Mathur ◽

Monique Ernst

Keyword(s):

Sustained Attention ◽

Attention Control

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Endogenous Attention Control "Chokes under Pressure"

Journal of Vision ◽

10.1167/10.7.251 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 10 (7) ◽

pp. 251-251 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

H. Chu ◽

J. Todd ◽

S. Beilock ◽

A. Lleras

Keyword(s):

Attention Control ◽

Endogenous Attention

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Individual differences in vigilance: Implications for measuring sustained attention and its association with other cognitive abilities and psychological constructs

10.31234/osf.io/nc9b6 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Matthew Kyle Robison ◽

Gene Arnold Brewer

Keyword(s):

Individual Differences ◽

Sustained Attention ◽

Cognitive Abilities ◽

Latent Variable ◽

Fluid Intelligence ◽

Attention Control ◽

Psychological Constructs ◽

Mixed Effects Modeling ◽

Latent Variable Analysis ◽

Control Fluid

Sustaining attention is notoriously difficult. Typically, when people have to sustain their attention to a single task, their performance deteriorates across time. This phenomenon isusually referred to as the vigilance decrement. However, as with most phenomena, there are substantial individual differences in the extent of this effect. That is, some people show more pronounced vigilance decrements than others. Such individual differences can potentially be leveraged to understand the cognitive mechanisms underlying sustained attention. In the present study, we combine linear mixed effects modeling and latent variable analysis to assess individual differences in vigilance and their association with other relevant psychological constructs. We analyzed six published and unpublished datasets and compared findings across studies. These studies used various combinations of working memory, attention control, fluid intelligence, and vigilance tasks. We conclude that vigilance is indeed a trait-level cognitive ability that is meaningfully related to other cognitive abilities, distinguishable yet related to attention control as it is typically measured, and correlates with other state and trait variables.

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Higher Tablet Use Is Associated With Better Sustained Attention Performance but Poorer Sleep Quality in School-Aged Children

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.742468 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Karen Chiu ◽

Frances C. Lewis ◽

Reeva Ashton ◽

Kim M. Cornish ◽

Katherine A. Johnson

Keyword(s):

Sleep Quality ◽

Sustained Attention ◽

Rating Scale ◽

Critical Role ◽

Attentional Focus ◽

Attention Control ◽

Sleep Habits ◽

Attention Performance ◽

Screen Use

There are growing concerns that increased screen device usage may have a detrimental impact on classroom behaviour and attentional focus. The consequences of screen use on child cognitive functioning have been relatively under-studied, and results remain largely inconsistent. Screen usage may displace the time usually spent asleep. The aim of this study was to examine associations between screen use, behavioural inattention and sustained attention control, and the potential modifying role of sleep. The relations between screen use, behavioural inattention, sustained attention and sleep were investigated in 162 6- to 8-year-old children, using parent-reported daily screen use, the SWAN ADHD behaviour rating scale, The sustained attention to response task and the children’s sleep habits questionnaire. Tablet use was associated with better sustained attention performance but was not associated with classroom behavioural inattention. Shorter sleep duration was associated with poorer behavioural inattention and sustained attention. Sleep quality and duration did not act as mediators between screen usage and behavioural inattention nor sustained attention control. These findings suggest that careful management of the amount of time spent on electronic screen devices could have a beneficial cognitive impact on young children. The results also highlight the critical role of sleep in enhancing both behavioural attention and sustained attention, which are essential for supporting cognitive development and learning.

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Differential Effects of Executive Processes on Working Memory

Journal of Individual Differences ◽

10.1027/1614-0001/a000211 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 37 (4) ◽

pp. 239-249

Author(s):

Xuezhu Ren ◽

Tengfei Wang ◽

Karl Schweizer ◽

Jing Guo

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Cognitive Processes ◽

Latent Variable ◽

Working Memory Capacity ◽

Memory Capacity ◽

Attention Control ◽

Executive Processes ◽

Differential Effects ◽

Prepotent Response ◽

Two Measures

Abstract. Although attention control accounts for a unique portion of the variance in working memory capacity (WMC), the way in which attention control contributes to WMC has not been thoroughly specified. The current work focused on fractionating attention control into distinctly different executive processes and examined to what extent key processes of attention control including updating, shifting, and prepotent response inhibition were related to WMC and whether these relations were different. A number of 216 university students completed experimental tasks of attention control and two measures of WMC. Latent variable analyses were employed for separating and modeling each process and their effects on WMC. The results showed that both the accuracy of updating and shifting were substantially related to WMC while the link from the accuracy of inhibition to WMC was insignificant; on the other hand, only the speed of shifting had a moderate effect on WMC while neither the speed of updating nor the speed of inhibition showed significant effect on WMC. The results suggest that these key processes of attention control exhibit differential effects on individual differences in WMC. The approach that combined experimental manipulations and statistical modeling constitutes a promising way of investigating cognitive processes.

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Speeded Paper-Pencil Sustained Attention and Mental Speed Tests

Journal of Individual Differences ◽

10.1027/1614-0001.29.4.205 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 29 (4) ◽

pp. 205-216 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Stefan Krumm ◽

Lothar Schmidt-Atzert ◽

Kurt Michalczyk ◽

Vanessa Danthiir

Keyword(s):

Sustained Attention ◽

Time Pressure ◽

Factor Model ◽

Higher Order ◽

Future Research ◽

Perceptual Speed ◽

Speed Factor ◽

Close Relationship ◽

Task Processing ◽

Order Factor

Mental speed (MS) and sustained attention (SA) are theoretically distinct constructs. However, tests of MS are very similar to SA tests that use time pressure as an impeding condition. The performance in such tasks largely relies on the participants’ speed of task processing (i.e., how quickly and correctly one can perform the simple cognitive tasks). The present study examined whether SA and MS are empirically the same or different constructs. To this end, 24 paper-pencil and computerized tests were administered to 199 students. SA turned out to be highly related to MS task classes: substitution and perceptual speed. Furthermore, SA showed a very close relationship with the paper-pencil MS factor. The correlation between SA and computerized speed was considerably lower but still high. In a higher-order general speed factor model, SA had the highest loading on the higher-order factor; the higher-order factor explained 88% of SA variance. It is argued that SA (as operationalized with tests using time pressure as an impeding condition) and MS cannot be differentiated, at the level of broad constructs. Implications for neuropsychological assessment and future research are discussed.

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