Response Time Scores on a Reflexive Attention Task Predict a Child's Inattention Score from a Parent Report

Overview

Journal PLoS One

Specialties General Medicine
Science

Date 2018 Jan 13

PMID 29329307

Authors

Rebecca A Lundwall

Jordan F Sgro

Julia Fanger

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Compared to sustained attention, only a small proportion of studies examine reflexive attention as a component of everyday attention. Understanding the significance of reflexive attention to everyday attention may inform better treatments for attentional disorders. Children from a general population (recruited when they were from 9-16 years old) completed an exogenously-cued task measuring the extent to which attention is captured by peripheral cue-target conditions. Parents completed a questionnaire reporting their child's day-to-day attention. A general linear model indicated that parent-rated inattention predicted the increase in response time over baseline when a bright cue preceded the target (whether it was valid or invalid) but not when a dim cue preceded the target. More attentive children had more pronounced response time increases from baseline. Our findings suggest a link between a basic measure of cognition (response time difference scores) and parent observations. The findings have implications for increased understanding of the role of reflexive attention in the everyday attention of children.

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