Attention and Executive Functioning Flashcards
Week 11 (12 cards)
- 👁️🗨️ Orienting Attention
Definition: Directing attention toward a specific stimulus in the environment.
Features:
Most basic form of attention
Develops early in infancy
Example: Turning your head when someone calls your name
🕒 Alerting Attention
Definition: Maintaining a state of readiness or vigilance in anticipation of something happening.
Features:
Begins in infancy, but continues to improve over time
Based on expectation or prediction
Example: Hearing the front door open and watching to see who enters.
🧠 Executive Attention
Definition: Involves higher-level control of attention for goal-directed behavior and problem-solving.
Components:
🔻 Inhibitory Control: Suppressing automatic or impulsive responses
→ Example: Not blurting out an answer in class.
🔄 Shifting: Switching attention between different tasks or mental sets
→ Example: Switching from solving a math problem to answering a reading question.
🔁 Updating: Holding and manipulating information in mind (like working memory)
→ Example: Remembering and updating steps in multi-step instructions.
🧠 Attention Network Test (ANT) Paradigm Summary
The ANT is designed to measure three distinct attention systems:
Alerting
Orienting
Executive Functioning
⚡ 1. Alerting Attention
Goal: Measures how much a warning cue helps a person get ready to respond.
How it’s tested:
Some trials have a warning cue (e.g., a flash or cross before the target).
Other trials have no cue.
Key idea: If you’re warned, you react faster.
Measure:
Alerting Effect = RTno cue - RTcue
🎯 2. Orienting Attention
Goal: Measures how well a person can shift attention to a specific location.
How it’s tested:
Central cue: Gives no location info (e.g., a cue in the middle of the screen).
Spatial cue: Points to where the target will appear.
Key idea: If the cue points to the correct location, reaction times improve.
Measure:
Orienting Effect = RTcentral cue - RTspatial cue
🧩 3. Executive Attention / Executive Function
Goal: Measures the ability to resolve conflict and ignore distractions.
How it’s tested:
Congruent trials: Target and distractors (e.g., arrows) point in the same direction.
Incongruent trials: Distractors point in the opposite direction of the target.
Key idea: Incongruent trials are slower due to conflict.
Measure:
Conflict Effect = RTincongruent - RTcongruent
🧠 Clinical Relevance of Executive Function Impairments
- ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder)
Often considered an executive function disorder.
Key impairments:
Poor inhibitory control (trouble stopping impulses).
Easily distracted.
Difficulty with initiating and sustaining attention on tasks.
- Schizophrenia / Psychosis
Marked by disorganized thinking and impaired goal-directed behavior.
Common issues:
Difficulty planning or executing tasks.
Poor self-care due to lack of coherent actions.
Severe executive dysfunction can impair daily functioning.
- Depression
Executive function problems are often state-dependent (worse during depressive episodes).
Common deficits:
Trouble starting tasks (task initiation).
Reduced sustained attention and concentration.
May appear as “slowness” or lack of mental energy.
- Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) / Stroke
Can lead to disruption in:
Working memory.
Task-oriented behavior.
Severe cases:
Disinhibition (e.g., inappropriate behavior, language, aggression, impulsivity).
Can drastically alter personality and social functioning.
🧠 Executive Attention in the A-not-B Task
- Inhibitory Control
Definition: The ability to suppress an automatic or previously rewarded response.
In the task: The child must inhibit the impulse to search in location A, where the object was repeatedly found before.
If weak: The child perseverates—keeps reaching for A because it’s the habitual, automatic response.
- Shifting
Definition: The ability to switch between tasks, goals, or mental sets.
In the task: The child must shift from the old rule (object is in A) to the new rule (object is now in B).
If weak: The child fails to adjust their behavior and keeps acting as if the original rule is still valid.
- Updating (Working Memory)
Definition: Keeping the most relevant information in mind and discarding outdated info.
In the task: The child must remember the most recent location of the object (B), rather than relying on outdated memory of A.
If weak: The child can’t effectively maintain or refresh the current location (B), leading to repeated errors.
🔁 Perseveration occurs when:
The child can’t inhibit the old response (A),
Can’t shift to the new one (B),
Or can’t update their mental representation of where the object is now.
🃏 Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) Task – Brief Summary
The DCCS task is a common measure of executive function in young children, especially cognitive flexibility (the ability to switch rules or perspectives).
🧪 How It Works:
Children are shown cards that vary along two dimensions (e.g., color and shape).
Example: A red rabbit and a blue boat.
Phase 1 – Sort by one rule (e.g., sort by color).
Child places all red items in one box and all blue items in another.
Phase 2 – Switch the rule (e.g., now sort by shape).
Now, rabbits go in one box, boats in the other.
🔁 What It Measures:
Shifting ability: Can the child stop using the old rule and adopt the new one?
Inhibitory control: Can they suppress the first rule when it’s no longer appropriate?
Updating: Can they keep the new rule active in mind?
🧠 Key Findings:
3-year-olds often perseverate—they keep using the first rule even after the switch.
By age 5, most children can flexibly switch rules.
🧠 A-not-B Task Summary
Purpose
Measures object permanence and early executive function (especially inhibitory control and working memory).
Age Group: Typically used with 8- to 18-month-old infants.
🧩 How it Works:
A toy is repeatedly hidden in Location A, and the infant successfully finds it.
Then, the toy is visibly hidden in Location B.
Despite seeing the toy go to B, many infants still reach for Location A.
❗ Key Error:
Perseveration — the infant repeats a previously successful action (reaching to A), even though it’s no longer correct.
✨ What It Shows:
Young infants struggle to inhibit the old response.
They may fail to update working memory with the new hiding location.
Reflects immature prefrontal cortex function.
DCCS Task
🧩 Representational Complexity Account
Young children can’t mentally represent complex rule structures.
Struggle with embedded if–then logic (e.g., “If we’re playing the shape game, then sort by shape”).
🎯 Attentional Inertia Account
Children have trouble shifting attention away from the first rule (e.g., sorting by color).
Their attention is “stuck,” leading them to ignore the new rule even when they can repeat it verbally.
💭 Active–Latent Memory Account
Children fail to keep the new rule active in working memory.
As a result, they default to the old rule, which lingers in latent memory (habit).
🔄 Conceptual Redescription Account
They struggle to think about the same object in multiple ways (e.g., a red rabbit as both red and a rabbit).
Their mental representation of the object is too rigid, so they can’t switch sorting rules based on different features.
Self Control - Summary
● The marshmallow task taps into goal-directed behaviour — requiring
planning and inhibition of an instinctive response. Examples of EF.
● Early self-control on this task has been found to predict later-life
outcomes, including academic achievement, health, and emotion
regulation
Result:
Children who could delay gratification for longer at 4 or 5 years of age
were rated by parents as adolescents as being more:
- Academically competent
- Socially competent
- Verbally fluent
- Rational
- Attentive
- Able to deal with stress and frustration
Unity and Diversity Account of Executive Function (EF) – Brief Explanation:
This theory explains how executive functions are both connected and distinct:
Unity:
All EF tasks (like inhibition, shifting, and updating) share a common underlying ability—often linked to general self-regulation or goal-directed control.
Diversity:
Each executive function also involves unique processes. For example:
Inhibition helps suppress distractions
Shifting helps switch between tasks or rules
Updating helps refresh working memory with new info
🔍 Key Idea: EF skills overlap (unity) but are also functionally separable (diversity). This explains why someone might be strong in one area (e.g., updating) but struggle in another (e.g., inhibition).
