Advancing the understanding of individual differences in attentional control: Theoretical, methodological, and analytical considerations

Abstract

Attentional control as an ability to regulate information processing during goal-directed behavior is critical to many theories of human cognition and thought to predict a large range of everyday behaviors. However, in recent years, failures to reliably assess individual differences in attentional control have sparked a debate concerning whether attentional control, as currently conceptualized and assessed, can be regarded as a valid psychometric construct. In this consensus paper, we summarize the current debate from theoretical, methodological, and analytical perspectives. First, we propose a consensus-based definition of attentional control and the cognitive mechanisms that potentially contribute to individual differences in attentional control. Next, guided by the findings of an in-depth literature survey, we discuss the psychometric considerations that are critical when assessing attentional control. We then provide suggestions for recent methodological and analytical approaches that can alleviate the most common concerns. We conclude that, to truly advance our understanding of the construct of attentional control, we must develop a theory-driven and empirically supported consensus on how we define, operationalize, and assess attentional control. This consensus paper presents a first step to achieve this goal; a shift toward transparent reporting, sharing of materials and data, and cross-laboratory efforts will further accelerate progress.

In Search of the Executive Cognitive Processes Proposed by Process-Overlap Theory

“…A recent attempt to address conceptual and methodological problems in the measurement of executive processes (von Bastian et al 2020) highlights that considerable diversity exists in what paradigms and scoring methods are used. A particularly heated debate centers around whether to use average performance in tasks or conditions with executive processing demands, or whether variance unique to executive processes should be isolated by contrasting task conditions with high and low executive processing demands.…”

“…The most promising alternative to differences scores is to isolate executive processes using cognitive measurement models (Frischkorn and Schubert 2018;von Bastian et al 2020) that provide a formalized implementation of the cognitive processes assumed to underlie observed behavior. For some executive processing tasks (e.g., the flanker task), several cognitive measurement models have been developed (Huebner et al 2010;Ulrich et al 2015;White et al 2011).…”

Advancing the Understanding of the Factor Structure of Executive Functioning

“…Executive functioning (EF) continues to be an interesting topic of investigation regarding its cognitive underpinning and debate of relevant assessment procedures. EF can be referred to as an “umbrella term”, and is synonymous with the terms “cognitive control” or “attentional control”, as it is concerned with the control of goal-directed behavior ( von Bastian et al 2020 ). EF can be either characterized as a unitary cognitive construct or as representing a diverse set of functions.…”

Intelligence test items varying in capacity demands cannot be used to test the causality of working memory capacity for fluid intelligence

“…Specifically, some studies indicated an important role of attentional control (Draheim et al, 2021), whereas other studies indicated only small contributions from attentional control (Frischkorn et al, 2019;Rey-Mermet et al, 2019). For a broad review on this topic see von Bastian et al (2020).…”