Attentional spreading in object-based attention.

The authors investigated 2 effects of object-based attention: the spread of attention within an attended object and the prioritization of search across possible target locations within an attended object. Participants performed a flanker task in which the location of the task-relevant target was fixed and known to participants. A spreading attention account predicts that object-based attention will arise from the spread of attention through an attended object. A prioritization account predicts that there will be a small, if any, object-based effect because the location of the target is known in advance and objects are not required to prioritize the deployment of attentional search. The results suggested that object-based attention operates via the spread of attention within an object. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional modulation of the P50 suppression deficit in recent-onset and chronic schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is associated with deficits in P50 suppression to the second stimulus in a pair, a process often conceptualized as a preattentive index of sensory gating. This study assessed the malleability of the deficit by determining whether early attentional control can influence P50 gating across different phases of schizophrenia. Participants included 28 patients in the recent-onset (n = 16) or chronic (n = 12) phase of illness and 28 healthy comparison subjects. During the standard paradigm, chronic schizophrenia patients exhibited impaired P50 suppression relative to healthy subjects, whereas recent-onset schizophrenia patients were intermediate. Directing voluntary attention toward the initial stimulus yielded substantial improvements in the P50 ratio; recent-onset schizophrenia patients achieved ratio scores comparable to those of healthy participants, whereas chronic patients also improved and could no longer be distinguished clearly from the healthy comparison sample. Directing attention toward the second stimulus enhanced P50 amplitude to the second stimulus across groups, possibly because activation of the inhibitory mechanism was overridden or circumvented by task demands. Thus, P50 suppression may be primarily preattentive under standard conditions, but manipulation of early attention can exert a modulatory influence on P50, indicating that the suppression deficit is malleable in schizophrenia without pharmacological agents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional bias in drug dependence: Vigilance for cigarette-related cues in smokers.

Two experiments investigated attentional biases for smoking-related cues in smokers and nonsmokers, using the visual probe task. In Experiment 1, when pictures were displayed for 500 ms, smokers who had made repeated quit attempts showed an attentional bias for smoking-related scenes. Experiment 2 replicated this finding and revealed that when pictures were presented for 2,000 ms, the smoker group as a whole showed vigilance for smoking-related cues, but nonsmokers did not. The findings from the 500-ms exposure condition suggest that initial orienting of attention to smoking cues was associated with repeated unsuccessful attempts at abstinence in smokers. Results are discussed with reference to incentive-sensitization theories of addiction and to component processes of selective attention, such as initial orienting versus maintenance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional capacity dysfunction and arousal in schizophrenia.

Criticizes 2 influential premises underlying most of current research on schizophrenia and attention: (a) belief in the existence of a specific information-processing deficit and (b) acceptance of a framework of "cold cognition." Capacity theory is proposed as an alternative theoretical framework within which the various phenotypically diverse attentional deficits in schizophrenia reflect a deficit in the control function that governs the mobilization and allocation of attention. Attentional deficits, therefore, are most manifest when effortful processing in short-term storage is required. Research on short-term memory processes in schizophrenics shows that the magnitude of the attention deficit correlates positively with the attentional requirements of the cognitive operations involved. The dysfunction is thought to reflect the high levels of arousal characteristic of schizophrenics. Parallels in the performance of schizophrenics and essentially normal but hyperaroused Ss are outlined in support of this hypothesis. The failure to consider the possible mediating effects of hyperarousal in attentional performance of schizophrenics is an omission in the research on schizophrenic cognition. Causality between arousal and information processing is addressed. (101 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Selective attention in schizophrenia.

Administered 8 dichotic shadowing tasks to 4 groups of patients, (delusional and nondelusional schizophrenics, nonschizophrenic psychiatric patients, and nonpsychiatric patients). The distraction used in the tasks was varied to determine which, if any, of the mechanisms involved in selective attention may be dysfunctional in schizophrenics. It was found that the topic of the distraction affected the performance of delusional schizophrenics differently than it affected the performance of the other groups. The loudness of the distraction affected all groups identically. Results suggest that attentional dysfunction in schizophrenia may be the product not of a breakdown of any of the mechanisms of selective attention but rather of an unusual manner of allocation attention. Delusional schizophrenics evidently differ from nonschizophrenics in the nature of the stimuli to which they attend and not in the actual ability to attend. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional asymmetry in schizophrenia: Disengagement and inhibition of return deficits.

This research examined 2 components of visual orienting in medicated schizophrenia patients: the validity effect and the inhibition of return (IOR). In the 1st experiment, patients showed the expected asymmetry in orienting attention, that is, larger validity effect in the right visual field than in the left. However, this asymmetry was due to a deficit in facilitatory processes rather than a disengagement deficit. In addition, patients showed a deficit in IOR. In the 2nd experiment, a 2nd central cue for summoning attention, explicitly, back to the center was used. In this experiment, normal IOR in schizophrenia patients was found. Because it was shown that schizophrenia patients do not have a disengagement deficit, IOR possibly could not be observed because of the increased facilitation in that location. It was proposed that the abnormality in visual attention in schizophrenia is due to a deficit in inhibitory processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional bias for craving-related (chocolate) food cues.

In this study, we investigated attentional biases for craving-related food cues. A pictorial dot probe task was used to assess selective attentional processing of one particular highly desired food, namely chocolate, relative to that of other highly desired foods. In Experiment 1, we examined biased processing of chocolate cues in habitual (trait) chocolate cravers, whereas in Experiment 2 we investigated the effect of experimentally induced (state) chocolate cravings on such processing. As predicted, habitual chocolate cravers (Experiment 1) and individuals in whom a craving for chocolate was temporarily induced (Experiment 2) showed speeded detection of probes replacing chocolate-related pictures, demonstrating an attentional bias for chocolate cues. Subsequent examination indicated that in both experiments the observed attentional biases stemmed from difficulty in disengaging attention from chocolate cues rather than from a shift of attention toward such cues. The findings have important theoretical and practical implications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A new clinical measure of attention: The Attentional Capacity Test.

Developed the Attentional Capacity Test (ACAT), which uses tasks that involve the processing of aurally presented numbers. A 60-item and a 24-item version of the ACAT were validated in 2 studies with a total of 144 normal Ss (aged 16–58 yrs) and 31 brain-damaged patients (aged 17–55 yrs). Other measures included the Digits Forward and Digits Backward tests from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Revised (WAIS—R) and a paced auditory serial addition test. Overall, the ACAT appears to be a valid measure of attentional capacity. Normative data are presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Location and frequency cues in auditory selective attention.

The roles of frequency and location cues in auditory selective attention were investigated in a series of experiments in which target tones were distinguished from distractors by frequency, location, or the conjunction of frequency and location features. When frequency separations in high-rate tone sequences were greater than 1 octave, participants were fastest at identifying targets defined by frequency and were sometimes faster at identifying conjunction than location targets. Frequency salience diminished as filtering demands were reduced: At long interstimulus intervals (> 2.0 sec), performance was superior in location conditions. The results suggest that frequency may play a role in auditory selective attention tasks analogous to the role of spatial position in visual attention. (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)     

Abnormal selective attention in psychopathic female offenders.

Research on psychopathy in women has generated equivocal laboratory findings. This study examined the performance of psychopathic women in 2 laboratory tasks designed to assess abnormal selective attention associated with response modulation deficits: a computerized picture-word (PW) task, and a picture-word Stroop (PW Stroop) task. Consistent with data from psychopathic men, women receiving high scores on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (Hare, 1991) displayed reduced Stroop interference on the PW and PW Stroop tasks. Results suggest that despite some differences in the expression of psychopathy across gender, psychopathic women are characterized by selective attention abnormalities predicted by the response modulation hypothesis and similar to those exhibited by psychopathic men. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impaired control of visual attention in schizophrenia.

To investigate attentional impairment in schizophrenia, the authors examined the performance of 22 patients with schizophrenia and 16 healthy control subjects in 4 visual search tasks that varied in perceptual requirements and in the need for precise attentional control. The rate of search was slowed in the patients in all tasks. However, the degree of slowing was largest in tasks requiring precise attentional control and smallest in tasks that were perceptually difficult but required less attentional control. This pattern of results indicates that the primary impairment of attention in schizophrenia lies in the control of attention and not in the selection processes that operate once attention has been directed to an object. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Enhanced facilitation of spatial attention in schizophrenia.

Objective: While attentional functions are usually found to be impaired in schizophrenia, a review of the literature on the orienting of spatial attention in schizophrenia suggested that voluntary attentional orienting in response to a valid cue might be paradoxically enhanced. We tested this hypothesis with orienting tasks involving the cued detection of a laterally presented target stimulus. Method: Subjects were chronic schizophrenia patients (SZ) and matched healthy control subjects (HC). In Experiment 1 (15 SZ, 16 HC), cues were endogenous (arrows) and could be valid (100% predictive) or neutral with respect to the subsequent target position. In Experiment 2 (16 SZ, 16 HC), subjects performed a standard orienting task with unpredictive exogenous cues (brightening of the target boxes). Results: In Experiment 1, SZ showed a larger attentional facilitation effect on reaction time than HC. In Experiment 2, no clear sign of enhanced attentional facilitation was found in SZ. Conclusions: The voluntary, facilitatory shifting of spatial attention may be relatively enhanced in individuals with schizophrenia in comparison to healthy individuals. This effect bears resemblance to other relative enhancements of information processing in schizophrenia such as saccade speed and semantic priming. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex and dominance cues in good-poor premorbid schizophrenia.

60 poor and 60 good premorbid schizophrenics and 60 psychiatric technicians (controls) heard 1 of 3 tape recordings portraying differing patterns of parental dominance while responding to a task requiring them to support either the maternal or paternal figure in the interactions they heard. Poors tended to support the maternal figure regardless of her dominance characteristics while goods tended to support whichever parental figure was dominant in an interaction. Controls tended to support the parental figure who was not dominant in an interaction. (15 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gaze direction modulates the disengagement of attention from facial expression in 10-month-olds.

This study investigated whether the disengagement of attention from facial expression is modulated by gaze direction in infants. To this end, we measured the saccadic reaction time required for the 10-month-olds to disengage their attention from angry and happy expressions combined with either straight or averted gaze. The 10-month-olds' disengagement of their attention from happy faces was modulated by gaze direction. This finding indicates that gaze direction strongly influences infants' allocation of attention to facial expressions. (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 improvement following quetiapine fumarate treatment in schizophrenia

Several techniques have been described for the trocar placement in laparoscopic-assisted colectomy (LAC). They share the placement of four or five trocars in different areas of the abdomen. A specimen extraction incision in these techniques generally incorporates only one or two trocar sites, and combined length of these incisions approximates the length of a limited laparotomy incision for open colectomy. In addition, intracorporeal communication between the surgeon and the first assistant, who usually works "against" the camera, is challenging and may actually prolong the procedure. We describe here a three-trocar midline approach to laparoscopic-assisted colectomy that allows incorporation of these trocar sites into a midline laparotomy approximately 3 inches long for "open" bowel resection and anastomosis. As a result, the total length of the abdominal wall incision is smaller and cosmesis is superior, while the relative simplicity of the technique, in comparison to complete laparoscopic colectomy, is emphasized. In this technique, the surgeon is much less dependent on the assistant's laparoscopic skills, allowing the laparoscopic part of the procedure to be performed by one surgeon assisted only by a camera operator.     

A multivariate study of attention dysfunction in schizophrenia.

Administered 5 tests purported to measure attention dysfunction to 60 schizophrenic and 60 nonschizophrenic male psychiatric patients. There was 30 chronic and 30 acute Ss in each group. The measures used were: size estimation, reaction time, and vigilance tasks, the Goldstein-Scheerer Object Sorting Test, and a proverb-interpretation task. Contrary to previous assumptions, these tests did not intercorrelate highly. In addition, individual-difference variables, as measured by staff ratings on the Psychotic Reaction Profile, failed to correlate significantly with task performance. (15 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multisensory cues capture spatial attention regardless of perceptual load.

We compared the ability of auditory, visual, and audiovisual (bimodal) exogenous cues to capture visuo-spatial attention under conditions of no load versus high perceptual load. Participants had to discriminate the elevation (up vs. down) of visual targets preceded by either unimodal or bimodal cues under conditions of high perceptual load (in which they had to monitor a rapidly presented central stream of visual letters for occasionally presented target digits) or no perceptual load (in which the central stream was replaced by a fixation point). The results of 3 experiments showed that all 3 cues captured visuo-spatial attention in the no-load condition. By contrast, only the bimodal cues captured visuo-spatial attention in the high-load condition, indicating for the first time that multisensory integration can play a key role in disengaging spatial attention from a concurrent perceptually demanding stimulus. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Increased attention but more efficient disengagement: Neuroscientific evidence for defensive processing of threatening health information.

Objective: Previous studies indicate that people respond defensively to threatening health information, especially when the information challenges self-relevant goals. The authors investigated whether reduced acceptance of self-relevant health risk information is already visible in early attention processes, that is, attention disengagement processes. Design: In a randomized, controlled trial with 29 smoking and nonsmoking students, a variant of Posner's cueing task was used in combination with the high-temporal resolution method of event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Main Outcome Measures: Reaction times and P300 ERP. Results: Smokers showed lower P300 amplitudes in response to high- as opposed to low-threat invalid trials when moving their attention to a target in the opposite visual field, indicating more efficient attention disengagement processes. Furthermore, both smokers and nonsmokers showed increased P300 amplitudes in response to the presentation of high- as opposed to low-threat valid trials, indicating threat-induced attention-capturing processes. Reaction time measures did not support the ERP data, indicating that the ERP measure can be extremely informative to measure low-level attention biases in health communication. Conclusion: The findings provide the first neuroscientific support for the hypothesis that threatening health information causes more efficient disengagement among those for whom the health threat is self-relevant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)