Global attentional deviance as a marker of risk for schizophrenia: Specificity and predictive validity.

Evaluated global attentional deficits as possible childhood markers of schizophrenia. Performance deviance was assessed across a continuous performance test, an attention span task, and the Digit Span subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). 63 children of schizophrenic parents, 43 children of parents with affective disorders, and 100 children of normal parents were tested when the children were 7–12 yrs old. A subgroup of Ss at risk for schizophrenia displayed extreme global deviance across attentional measures. Only a small number of Ss at risk for affective disorders and normal comparison Ss showed similar extreme attentional deficits. The global attentional deficits measured at these early ages were related to behavioral disturbances (behavior was assessed in 3–6 mo intervals since 1971) in young adulthood for Ss at risk for schizophrenia, but not for Ss in the affective risk group or in the normal comparison group. It is concluded that global attentional deficits have considerable specificity for predicting behavioral problems thought to be precursors of schizophrenia or schizophrenia-related disorders. (54 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual attention in HIV-1 infection.

27 nondemented HIV-seropositive men and 13 seronegative controls performed 2 versions of a spatial attention task that engaged either automatic or controlled attentional processing. Ss also performed a 3rd task requiring divided attention, which tested for potential deficits in attentional resources. HIV-seropositive symptomatic Ss were impaired on the automatic processing task, whereas asymptomatic Ss performed the task normally compared with controls. In contrast, no differences were observed among the 3 groups on the controlled attention task. However, both seropositive groups showed deficits on the divided attention task. These results suggest that deficits in selective attention are present early in the course of HIV-1 infection. The most prominent impairment is seen on tasks that are highly demanding of attentional resources, whereas deficits in automatic processing develop later in the disease process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Additional considerations for children's attentional performance: Reply to Share.

Share (1988) expressed concern that data from our recent study (Tarnowski, Prinz, & Nay, 1986) failed to provide support for the diagnostic validity of specific subgroups of children contained within the attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADDH) and learning disability (LD) diagnostic dimensions. The Tarnowski et al (1986) study was not intended as a diagnostic validation of syndromes; its purpose was to compare the attentional performance of diagnostic subgroups that have been inappropriately combined in past research. A reanalysis of the data using canonical discrimination analysis reinforced our original findings of a combinatorial effect of ADDH and LD but failed to provide multivariate discrimination of the pure ADDH and LD subgroups. Given these findings, Share's (1988) point is well taken. We strongly recommend that future research on attentional performance in ADDH and LD populations subdivide samples on each dimension in order to avoid masking potentially meaningful group differences. Additional research needs to be conducted clarifying similarities and differences in the attentional functioning of ADDH?+?LD, ADDH, and LD subgroups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comprehension-monitoring skills in learning-disabled children.

Compared comprehension-monitoring skills of learning disabled (LD) and normal elementary school children. Comprehension monitoring, the ability to evaluate one's level of understanding incoming messages, was assessed in the context of a game-learning task. Ss were 12 younger LD boys (7–8 yrs old), 12 older LD boys (9–10 yrs old), and 12 younger and 10 older normal boys matched on age and IQ. No age effects were observed. The major finding was that relative to the matched normal Ss, LD Ss were deficient in comprehension-monitoring skills. (5 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional strategies, attention, and metacognition in Puerto Rican children.

60 2nd-, 5th-, and 8th-grade Puerto Ricans participated in a strategy assessment task and an incidental learning task that provided a measure of attentional performance. Metacognition concerning attention was assessed by asking Ss to predict how much incidental material they would recall. ANOVAs revealed no developmental changes in the use of an efficient attentional strategy, the amount of central recall, the amount of incidental recall, or in metacognitive knowledge. Results differ from a previous study by the 1st author and M. G. Weiss with 60 predominantly White, middle-class Florida children in which attention and strategies became increasingly efficient as a function of age. In comparison to the Florida sample, Puerto Rican 2nd graders' strategies were more efficient and the 8th graders' strategies were less efficient. Attention on the incidental learning task was less selective for the Puerto Rican Ss than the Florida Ss. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional style and the self-regulation of mode-specific attention: An electroencephalograhic study.

Assessed the cortical concomitants of selective mode-specific attention in Ss differing in the capacity for sustained attentional involvement. 10 high- and 10 low-scoring Ss on the Tellegen Absorption Scale were required to (a) simply attend to either a randomly flashing light or a randomly produced tapping sensation on the forearm during one block of trials and to (b) count the flashes and the taps during another trial block. The EEG was recorded from the left occipital and left sensorimotor regions and was filtered for alpha activity and quantified on line. Selective mode-specific attention produced reliable shifts in cortical patterning between kinesthetic and visual attention trials. During the counting condition, high-scoring Ss showed significantly greater specificity in cortical patterning than did low-scoring Ss. This difference was primarily a function of high-scoring Ss' ability to inhibit activation in the occipital region while counting taps. Findings suggest that high scores on the Absorption scale are associated with a flexible attentional style and that, given the requisite task demands, attentionally absorbed Ss show greater mode-specific cortical patterning during selective attention than do low scorers. (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional dysfunction, social perception, and social competence: What is the nature of the relationship?

The aim of this study was to examine the nature of the relationship between attentional dysfunction and social competence deficits in patients with schizophrenia. Attentional functioning, social perception, and social competence were assessed in 56 inpatients. Measures of vigilance and span of apprehension were administered to assess attentional functioning. Social perception was assessed with an audiovisual measure of affect recognition. Social competence was rated from a role-play task. Span of apprehension and auditory vigilance emerged as specific predictors of social competence. Affect recognition was tested as a mediator and a moderator of the relationship between attentional dysfunction and social competence. Affect recognition was found to moderate the relationship between span of apprehension and social competence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Restricted stimulus control and inferred attentional deficits in autistic and retarded children.

Seven autistic, 7 Down's syndrome, and 7 normal children (mean CAs 83.1, 65.7, and 45.3 mo; mean MAs 42, 36.7, and 50.6 mo; mean IQs 46.3, 45.3, and 98.6, respectively) were initially trained on a single dimension, simultaneous match-to-sample problem. Following criterion performance, each S's simultaneous matching of 4 new dimensions (2 attributes/dimension) was assessed in order to clarify the relation between autism, retardation, and attentional deficits. The Down's syndrome Ss matched significantly fewer attributes than did the autistic and normal Ss, who were equivalent in their performances. Based on these results, it is suggested that Down's syndrome and not autistic children suffer from attentional deficits. Performance in this simultaneous match-to-sample paradigm, which better assesses attentional mechanisms, was related to performances in previous serial and simultaneous discrimination paradigms, in which autistic children reportedly evidenced overselective attention. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teacher ratings predict peer ratings of aggression at 3-year follow-up in boys with attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity.

Compared initial and 3-yr follow-up peer ratings of 19 boys, who were in Grades 1–3 at the beginning of the study, who had attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADDH). When the entire group was considered, nominations on the Aggression and Likability factors of a pupil evaluation inventory improved. Subgroups were created using teacher ratings on an aggression scale. Peer ratings of Aggression improved for Ss whom teachers rated below the median on the aggression scale but not for Ss rated above the median. Subgroups reflecting other teacher and peer ratings were less effective in predicting differential change in peer ratings of ADDH Ss. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Causal attributions of learning disabled children: Individual differences and their implications for persistence.

It has been shown that learning disabled (LD) children are likely to develop a maladaptive pattern of causal attributions. However, it is unclear whether LD children are more likely to differ from their peers in terms of a greater tendency to attribute their difficulties to insufficient ability or in terms of a greater tendency to blame external factors. The authors investigated this issue in 24 LD boys and 14 LD girls in Grades 3–5 and in 38 age-, sex-, race-, and IQ-matched normal controls. Ss were asked to complete scales assessing attributions for academic difficulties; 2 wks later, Ss were presented with a reading task for which persistence was measured. It was found that LD girls were significantly more likely than nondisabled girls to attribute their difficulties to insufficient ability, but girls did not differ in their tendency to attribute their difficulties to external factors. In contrast, LD boys were significantly more likely than nondisabled boys to attribute their difficulties to external factors, but they did not differ from nondisabled boys in their tendency to attribute their difficulties to insufficient ability. Although the tendency to blame one's ability was negatively related to reading task persistence, the tendency to attribute one's difficulties to external factors did not show this negative relation. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Characterization of perforant path lesions in rodent models of memory and attention

Early stage Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology is associated with neurodegeneration of systems within the temporal cortex, e.g. the entorhinal cortex, perforant pathway and hippocampus. The perforant pathway provides the major neuronal input to the hippocampus from the entorhinal cortex and thus relays multimodal sensory information derived from cortical zones into the hippocampus. The earliest symptoms of AD include cognitive impairments, e.g. deficits in short-term memory and attention. Consequently, we have investigated the effect of bilateral knife cut lesions to the perforant path on cognition in rats using models measuring primarily short-term memory (operant delayed match to position task), attention (serial five-choice reaction time task) and spatial learning (Morris water maze). Rats receiving bilateral perforant path lesions showed normal neurological function and a mild hyperactivity. The lesion produced little effect on attention assessed using the five-choice task. In contrast, animals with equivalent lesions showed a robust delay-dependent deficit in the delayed match to position task. Spatial learning in the water maze task was also severely impaired. The delay-dependent deficit in the match to position task was not reversed by tacrine (3 mg/kg) pretreatment. The present data support a selective impairment of cognitive function following perforant path lesions that was confined to mnemonic rather than attentional processing. These findings complement primate and human studies identifying a critical role of the perforant pathway and associated temporal lobe structures in declarative memory. Degeneration of the perforant pathway is likely to contribute to the mnemonic deficits characteristic of early AD. The failure of tacrine to ameliorate these deficits may be relevant to an emerging clinical literature suggesting that cholinomimetic therapies improve attentional rather than mnemonic function in AD.     

Span of apprehension and arousal in schizophrenia.

Investigated the relationship between levels of somatic arousal, autonomic reactivity, and visual information processing in 32 schizophrenic and 16 normal Ss. Span of apprehension for tachistoscopically presented consonants was measured over 80 trials and skin conductance level (SCL) and heart rate (HR) were monitored during rest and performance. An information-processing deficiency in the schizophrenic Ss was interpreted as related to perceptual rather than mnemonic factors. Individual differences in level of arousal (SCL and HR) were not systematically related to information-processing efficiency in schizophrenic or normal Ss. Correlations between span and change in arousal level suggested that autonomic flexibility enhanced information-processing efficiency in both groups. Amplitude of stimulus-specific autonomic reactivity in normal Ss was more specifically modulated to the attention response demands of the task. (28 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of visual and auditory distractors on learning disabled and normal children's recognition memory performance.

Investigated whether distractibility in learning disabled (LD) children could be predicted on the basis of diagnosed visual and auditory learning deficits. 26 children in Grades 2–4 were classified as having visual or auditory reading disorders on the basis of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities. They and 17 normally achieving children from the same grades performed visual and auditory recognition memory tasks with visual or auditory distractors presented on 80% of the trials. Analysis of error frequencies revealed that with distractors, Ss in the 2 LD groups made more errors and did not improve over trials as much as control Ss. However, the predicted interaction between learning disability modality and task or distractor modality did not obtain. Rather, all 3 S groups made more errors when task and distractor were in the same modality. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Generalization from categorical memory tasks to prose by learning disabled adolescents.

Investigated how 60 learning disabled ([LD] aged 12 yrs to 14 yrs 5 mo) and 20 age-matched nondisabled (NLD) Ss would transfer the use of 4 study rules from instructed materials (pictures) to a prose recall task. Four phases spread over a 3-wk period were involved: pretest, informational phase (2 lessons), individualized training (3 lessons), and posttest. Results show that LDs performed poorly relative to NLD peers at pretest on categorical picture and prose recall tasks. 20 LD Ss who received rule-only instruction and 20 LD Ss who received rule-plus-prose examples instruction surpassed 20 LD Ss in the control condition at posttest on the picture task in rule use and in recall. On the prose task, a majority of the instructed LD Ss demonstrated transfer of the instructed rules. As a group, the instructed LD Ss no longer differed observably from NLD Ss in recall or in the strategies they employed to study and to retrieve. The clinical view that LD Ss are characterized by a failure to generalize was not supported by these findings. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of color stimulation on performance and activity of hyperactive and nonhyperactive children.

Conducted a theoretically based investigation of color stimulation effects on hyperactivity. Moderating variables likely to be important in investigating these effects were identified as the nature of the task (learning and sustained attention), task factors that could provide changes in level of stimulation (task exposure, temporal placement of added stimulation), and child characteristics (sex). 66 hyperactive and 80 normal 1st–6th graders were administered a concept task and a vigilance task under 1 of 3 conditions: no stimulation added, stimulation added early, or stimulation added late. Findings show that stimulation added early or late to a sustained attention task could normalize the performance of hyperactive Ss and reduce their activity. When the task involved acquisition of new information, stimulation added late reduced the activity of the hyperactive Ss. Stimulation effects on concept task performance were, however, less interpretable due to task floor-effects. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of directed attention on cerebral asymmetries in normal and learning-disabled children.

Using a dichotic listening task employing both undirected and directed attention conditions, cerebral asymmetries were examined in matched populations of 32 normal and 32 learning-disabled (LD) children (ages 7 yrs 6 mo–13 yrs 2 mo). The analysis of recall performance indicated that development was not a significant factor in either group; both the normal and LD Ss showed a right-ear effect, although the LD Ss performed at a degraded level and were unable to demonstrate a right-ear advantage (REA) when attention was directed to the left ear, unlike normal Ss, who produced the REA despite the directed attention conditions. Results suggest that LD children probably do not suffer from developmental delays but rather from a defect in callosal functioning that interferes with their ability to process verbal information simultaneously. (41 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Span of apprehension in schizophrenic patients as a function of distractor masking and laterality.

Compared 20 schizophrenic patients, 10 depressed control patients, and 20 normal control Ss in a forced-choice, target-detection method for assessing the span of apprehension. The detection task required the S to report which of 2 target letters was presented among 7 other (distractor) letters. Performance accuracy was examined as a function of target location and whether the distractor letters were masked after their presentation. The backward masking of the distractors improved target-detection accuracy of both control groups but reduced accuracy of the schizophrenic group. In addition, schizophrenics performed particularly poorly on targets located in the left half or lower half of the display. Results suggest that response to the masking of distractors may be a new index of attentional shortcoming in schizophrenia. Various theoretical explanations for the target location findings are also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Span of apprehension deficits in children vulnerable to psychopathology: A failure to replicate.

Tested the findings of R. J. Asarnow et al (see record 1978-05788-001) and D. J. MacCrimmon et al (see record 1981-21451-001) that children vulnerable to psychopathology show performance deficits on the span of apprehension task by examining data from a study by the 2nd and 3rd present authors (1975) that provided a larger sample of high-risk children. Results show that the 34 children (mean age 15.4 yrs) of schizophrenics did not differ from the 54 children (mean age 15.3 yrs) of unipolars, the 52 children (mean age 15.6 yrs) of bipolars, or the 75 children (mean age 15.3 yrs) of normal controls in their span performance. Possible sources of the discrepant results are discussed, and it is suggested that the present findings do not call into question the possibility that some high-risk children show attentional deficits. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Disconnection of the amygdala central nucleus and the substantia innominata/nucleus basalis magnocellularis disrupts performance in a sustained attention task.

The basal forebrain cholinergic system is broadly implicated in the regulation of attention. Disruptions in the function of this system produce impairments in many attentional functions, including the performance of well-learned responses under increased attentional load and the surprise-induced enhancement of learning rate. Similarly, lesions of the amygdala central nucleus (CeA) have been found to impair attentional function in some circumstances. In the present article, the effects of lesions that disconnected CeA from the cholinergic substantia innominata/nucleus basalis magnocellularis (SI/nBM) on performance are examined in a modified 5-choice serial reaction time (5CSRT) task, thought to assess selective or sustained attention. The lesions impaired performance under conditions of increased attentional load, suggesting that a circuit that includes CeA and SI/nBM regulates these aspects of attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Test anxiety and ineffective test taking: Different names, same construct?

Investigated the relative contributions of test anxiety and exam-taking skills to information-processing deficits in a dual-task paradigm. Under stress instructions, 64 high- and low-test-anxious college students with either good or poor exam-taking skills alternately performed a primary task (Raven Advanced Progressive Matrices) separately and concurrently with a secondary task (a backward digit span test). Results indicate that exam-skilled, high-anxious Ss performed comparably with skilled, low-anxious peers on the primary Raven task, yet significantly worse on the concurrent backward digit span task. Conversely, high-anxious, unskilled Ss were exceeded by low-anxious, unskilled peers on both tasks. Findings suggest that test anxiety and exam-taking ability independently influence cognitive problem solving in the evaluative setting. It is suggested that although good exam skills can compensate for anxiety-induced deficits in working-memory capacity by refocusing attention toward the task, processing deficits still emerge as task demands increase. Measures of state anxiety and cognitive interference further suggest that a negative internal focus, not arousal, underlies such deficits. (43 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)