Analysis of the elements of attention: A neuropsychological approach

Abstract

A model for conceptualizing the components or elements of attention is presented. The model substitutes for the diffuse and global concept of "attention" a group of four processes and links them to a putative system of cerebral structures. Data in support of the model are presented; they are derived from neuropsychological test scores obtained from two samples, the first consisting of 203 adult neuropsychiatric patients and normal control subjects, and the second, an epidemiologically-based sample of 435 elementary school children. Principal components analyses of test scores from these two populations yielded similar results: a set of independent elements of attention that are assayed by different tests. This work presents a heuristic for clinical research in which the measurement of attention is essential.

Neuropsychological Sequelae of PTSD and TBI Following War Deployment among OEF/OIF Veterans

“…In two studies that tested a four-domain model of attention (Mirsky, Anthony, Duncan, Ahearn, & Kellam, 1991), Gulf War and Vietnam Veterans with PTSD performed worse than warzone-exposed Veterans without PTSD on sustained attention and encoding tasks, but not on focus-execute or a shifting task (Vasterling et al, 1998;. These findings are representative of other studies with war Veterans in which PTSD was associated with deficits on encoding (e.g., Gurvits, Lasko, Schacter, Kuhne, Orr, & Pitman, 1993;Uddo, Vasterling, Brailey, & Sutker, 1993;Barrett, Green, Morris, Giles, & Croft, 1996;Vasterling, Brailey, Constans, Borges, & Sutker, 1997;Beckham, Crawford, & Feldman, 1998;Gilbertson et al, 2001), but not set-shifting (Gurvits et al, 1993;Sullivan, Krengel, Proctor, Devine, Heeren, & White, 2003) or focus-execute tasks (Litz et al, 1996).…”

A cognitive cascade in infancy: Pathways from prematurity to later mental development

“…They are thought to reflect orienting (Mirsky, 1996;Posner & Petersen, 1990;Posner & Raichle, 1994) or selective attention (Swanson et al, 1998), where the focus of attention must be repeatedly engaged, disengaged, shifted, and then re-engaged. Shorter looks are thought to reflect better facility at disengaging attention (Colombo, 1993;Colombo, Mitchell, Coldren, & Freeseman, 1991;Freeseman, Colombo, & Coldren, 1993;Frick, Colombo, & Saxon, 1999;Jacobson, Jacobson, Sokol, Martier, & Ager, 1993) and higher shift rates are thought to reflect, in addition, more comparison behavior (Rose et al, 2001;Rose, Feldman, McCarton, & Wolfson, 1988;Ruff, 1975).…”

Long-term neural processing of attention following early childhood traumatic brain injury: fMRI and neurobehavioral outcomes

“…Although the neuroanatomical correlates of attention and TBI have not yet been established, it seems that there is some overlap in brain regions that are particularly vulnerable to injury in TBI and the structures believed to support attention (e.g., Mirsky et al, 1991;Rothbart & Posner, 2001). For example, Posner has delineated a three-component attention model in which different neural substrates support unique attentional processing networks (Rothbart & Posner, 2001).…”

“…Attention deficits adversely affect neurobehavioral outcomes and functional skills (Ganesalingam et al, 2006(Ganesalingam et al, , 2007. More specifically, sustained attention, conceptualized as the capacity to maintain arousal and alertness towards a task over time (Mirsky et al, 1991), is believed to be integral in the regulation of cognitive resources needed for academic achievement, adaptive functioning, and social functioning (Dennis et al, 1995). Sustained attention is often measured using continuous performance tests (e.g., CPT; Rosvold et al, 1956), which assess the ability to maintain attention for critical but temporally infrequent events, presented in the absence of simultaneous distractors.…”