scholarly journals The relationship between sustained attention and aerobic fitness in a group of young adults

PeerJ ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. e3831 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis F. Ciria ◽  
Pandelis Perakakis ◽  
Antonio Luque-Casado ◽  
Cristina Morato ◽  
Daniel Sanabria
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Aerobic Fitness ◽  
Vigilance Task ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
Oddball Task ◽  
Broad Array ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Psychomotor Vigilance

BackgroundA growing set of studies has shown a positive relationship between aerobic fitness and a broad array of cognitive functions. However, few studies have focused on sustained attention, which has been considered a fundamental cognitive process that underlies most everyday activities. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of aerobic fitness as a key factor in sustained attention capacities in young adults.MethodsForty-four young adults (18–23 years) were divided into two groups as a function of the level of aerobic fitness (high-fit and low-fit). Participants completed the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) and an oddball task where they had to detect infrequent targets presented among frequent non-targets.ResultsThe analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed faster responses for the high-fit group than for the low-fit group in the PVT, replicating previous accounts. In the oddball task, the high-fit group maintained their accuracy (ACC) rate of target detection over time, while the low-fit group suffered a significant decline of response ACC throughout the task.DiscussionImportantly, the results show that the greater sustained attention capacity of high-fit young adults is not specific to a reaction time (RT) sustained attention task like the PVT, but it is also evident in an ACC oddball task. In sum, the present findings point to the important role of aerobic fitness on sustained attention capacities in young adults.

Psychometric Curves Reveal Three Mechanisms of Vigilance Decrement

2021 ◽  
pp. 095679762110075
Author(s):  
Jason S. McCarley ◽  
Yusuke Yamani
Keyword(s):  
Response Bias ◽  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Hierarchical Modeling ◽  
Vigilance Task ◽  
Perceptual Sensitivity ◽  
Vigilance Decrement ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
Convenience Sample ◽  
Bayesian Hierarchical ◽  
Attentional Lapses

The vigilance decrement is a decline in signal detection rate that occurs over time on a sustained-attention task. The effect has typically been ascribed to conservative shifts of response bias and losses of perceptual sensitivity. Recent work, though, has suggested that sensitivity losses in vigilance tasks are spurious, and other findings have implied that attentional lapses contribute to vigilance failures. To test these possibilities, we used Bayesian hierarchical modeling to compare psychometric curves for the first and last blocks of a visual vigilance task. Participants were a convenience sample of 99 young adults. Data showed evidence for all three postulated mechanisms of vigilance loss: a conservative shift of response bias, a decrease in perceptual sensitivity, and a tendency toward more frequent attentional lapses. Results confirm that sensitivity losses are possible in a sustained-attention task but indicate that mental lapses can also contribute to the vigilance decrement.

Strength and cardiometabolic risk in young adults: The mediator role of aerobic fitness and waist circumference

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (7) ◽  
pp. 1801-1807 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Díez-Fernández ◽  
V. Martínez-Vizcaíno ◽  
A. Torres-Costoso ◽  
J. Cañete García-Prieto ◽  
P. Franquelo-Morales ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Waist Circumference ◽  
Aerobic Fitness ◽  
Cardiometabolic Risk ◽  
Mediator Role

scholarly journals Do concerns about COVID-19 impair sustained attention?

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jihyang Jun ◽  
Yi Ni Toh ◽  
Caitlin A. Sisk ◽  
Roger W. Remington ◽  
Vanessa G. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Traffic Accidents ◽  
Educational Achievement ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Continuous Performance Task ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
Workplace Productivity ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

AbstractThe novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has considerably heightened health and financial concerns for many individuals. Similar concerns, such as those associated with poverty, impair performance on cognitive control tasks. If ongoing concerns about COVID-19 substantially increase the tendency to mind wander in tasks requiring sustained attention, these worries could degrade performance on a wide range of tasks, leading, for example, to increased traffic accidents, diminished educational achievement, and lower workplace productivity. In two pre-registered experiments, we investigated the degree to which young adults’ concerns about COVID-19 correlated with their ability to sustain attention. Experiment 1 tested mainly European participants during an early phase of the pandemic. After completing a survey probing COVID-related concerns, participants engaged in a continuous performance task (CPT) over two, 4-min blocks, during which they responded to city scenes that occurred 90% of the time and withheld responses to mountain scenes that occurred 10% of the time. Despite large and stable individual differences, performance on the scene CPT did not significantly correlate with the severity of COVID-related concerns obtained from the survey. Experiment 2 tested US participants during a later phase of the pandemic. Once again, CPT performance did not significantly correlate with COVID concerns expressed in a pre-task survey. However, participants who had more task-unrelated thoughts performed more poorly on the CPT. These findings suggest that although COVID-19 increased anxiety in a broad swath of society, young adults are able to hold these concerns in a latent format, minimizing their impact on performance in a demanding sustained attention task.

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