Aim The experiment proposed to study the effect of sustained visual attention in an effective visual field of 40 degrees, in cued and uncued conditions with different set-sizes. Methods The participants had a normal contrast and visual acuity with normal ocular/general health. The experiments were performed both for central (0 - 20degrees) and peripheral (>20 – 50 degrees) visual fields. The targets were presented with valid and invalid cued conditions in different set-sizes of 500, 1000 and 2000. The targets were Gabor gratings oriented at 90 or 180deg subtending a minimum angle of resolution (MAR) ranging from 1.5-10minarc at 25cm. The spatial frequency of the Gabor ranged from 1- 29cycles/degrees and contrast from 20-100%. The observer had to identify the Gabor with horizontal grating and register the response. The accuracy and the reaction times for the targets were evaluated. Results The central targets had lower reaction times and high accuracy compared to the peripheral targets. There was a significantly increasing eccentricity effect as the targets were displayed much peripherally. It was less with presentation of valid sustained cues but it was not eliminated. The diminishing contrast of the target had a significant increase in reaction times and reduced accuracy. The effect of increasing number of items in the display didn’t show any significant increase in reaction time, i.e. there was no “set-size effect” seen both central and peripheral targets. The valid cues improved the performance with lower reaction times, compared to the neutral cued conditions, in each of the different experiments and resulted in an improved accuracy in both the central and peripheral visual field. Conclusion Visual attention is affected by contrast, target size and spatial gratings. Reaction time is high and accuracy less for low contrast targets, high spatial frequency and larger set-size, except for set-size 2000 in the central field where it was seen that the reaction times were reduced. The effect is consistent in both central and peripheral visual fields. The set-size also has an effect on the reaction times and on accuracy. The effects are more pronounced in the peripheral visual field.

Social Anxiety Disorder is characterized by irrational and persistent fears of potential evaluation and scrutiny by others. For socially anxious youth, the core, maladaptive cognition is fear of negative evaluation (FNE). Whereas Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) targets remediation of intense and unfounded FNE, Attention Bias Modification Treatment (ABMT) targets attention bias. The degree to which FNE and biased attention are related processes is unknown. This study sought to assess the relationship between FNE and two indices of attention bias (dot probe and eye-tracking). In addition, this study examines differences in attention bias between a clinically confirmed group of youth SAD and healthy controls. A significant group difference in average latency to fixate on angry faces was found [F(1,65) = 31.94, p < .001, ηp2 = .33]. However, the pattern was not consistent across the other attention bias metrics (i.e., dot probe bias scores and first fixation direction percentage towards angry faces). In addition, associations between FNE and the attention bias metrics were not statistically significant in either group. Future directions and implications of these findings within the context of refinements to existing interventions are discussed. / Master of Science / Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is characterized by irrational and persistent fears of potential evaluation and scrutiny by others. For socially anxious youth, a main feature of the disorder is fear of negative evaluation (FNE). Whereas Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) targets FNE, Attention Bias Modification Treatment (ABMT) targets attention bias. However, the degree to which FNE and biased attention are related processes has not been studied. This study examined the relationship between FNE and two indices of attention bias (dot probe and eye-tracking). This study also examines differences in attention bias between a youth with SAD and healthy youth (no psychological diagnoses). Group differences were found for only one attention bias measure (i.e., youth with SAD were quicker to look at anger faces relative to non-anxious youth). In addition, associations between FNE and the attention bias metrics were not statistically significant in either group. Future directions of these findings are discussed.

Thesis advisor: Sean MacEvoy / Humans can pay attention both to particular locations in space (“space-based attention”) and to specific objects (“object-based attention”). The goal of this study was to understand the role of object familiarity and complexity in the control of object-based attention. We used a well-known manifestation of object-based attention known as same-object advantage (SOA) to test this. In SOA, participants are faster at detecting a target event that takes place in a cued object than one that takes place in an uncued object, even when the distance between cue and target is kept fixed. To control shape familiarity, objects in the current study were randomly-generated irregular polygons known as Attneave shapes. Experiment 1 showed that SOA exists for these irregular shapes, even when participants are unfamiliar with them. In Experiment 2, participants first underwent training designed to familiarize them with a subset of the Attneave shapes used in Experiment 1. Again there was a significant SOA. If object-based attention is dependent upon object familiarity, we hypothesized that SOA, measured in terms of reaction time, should be greater in Experiment 2 than Experiment 1. Although there was a numerical increase in the reaction time signature of SOA in Experiment 2, this effect was not significant. While this does not strictly support our hypothesis, several aspects of this study suggest that object familiarity does play some role in mediating object-based attention. / Thesis (BS) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Psychology Honors Program. / Discipline: Psychology.

Due to numerous definitions for attention and inhibition, it is very difficult to operationalize and measure these constructs (Barkley, 1996). The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether there is evidence for independence between attention and inhibition constructs using measures from the TEA-ch, Gordon CPT, Stroop Task, WISC- Digit Span and Go-No-Go Tasks and tasks of inhibition. Each of 140 students were evaluated on all measures and scores were correlated. In addition, Teacher Ratings and scores from the OLSAT were also correlated with attention and inhibition scores. Gender differences between all scores were also examined. Overall, measures did not correlate as expected. Results showed that there were significant but weak correlations among the sustained and selective attention variables. Similarly, when all inhibition variables were correlated only four significant but weak correlations were found. The lack of convergent validity and low correlations among these measures suggest that attention and inhibition constructs may be multi-dimensional. Intercorrelations between attention and inhibition variables were also weak. Relationships between OLSAT scores, Teachers Ratings and attention and inhibition variables showed that as scores that reflect reasoning skills and Teacher Ratings increased, the ability to attend and inhibit also increased. Gender differences in attention and inhibition scores were also examined and showed that girls were better at paying attention to stimuli and inhibiting impulsive responses than boys.

According to the Multiprocess Theory (Einstein and McDaniel, 1990), prospective memory is supported by two separate cognitive processes: monitoring and spontaneous retrieval. Successful monitoring during prospective memory tasks requires attention to be divided between separate stimuli and the attention needs to be sustained throughout the course of the task. However, this theoretical account also allows for prospective memory in the absence of monitoring, as in cases where memory is retrieved spontaneously in response to some cue. In the course of this study, support for the Multiprocess Theory has been found. Using a dual-task paradigm, prospective memory targets were displayed during a lexical decision task where participants were required to make a word/nonword decision to letter strings. Prospective memory targets were found using both monitoring and spontaneous retrieval, although displaying the target in the focus of attention or not did not differentially induce monitoring. A small increase from 2% target presentation rates (Experiments 1 through 3) to 3% target presentation rates (Experiment 4) did produce evidence of task interference that reflects monitoring; however, increasing target presentation rates to 5% did not increase reaction times above those found with 3% target presentation rates. Focal prospective memory targets (words) had higher accuracy rates than nonfocal prospective memory targets (words starting with letter "g"). Inhibiting responses to the lexical decision task to respond to prospective memory targets encouraged priorities to shift attention to the lexical decision task and increased the speed of lexical decision responding across the extended task. No evidence was found to support the hypothesis that sustained attention is identical to, or even a significant component of, monitoring. Sustained attention was not necessary to accomplish the prospective memory action, as variables affecting vigilance were not found to influence prospective-memory performance in the extended version of the dual-task paradigm used in this experiment. In Experiment 3, draining attention resources did negatively affect lexical decision reaction times and prospective memory performance with focal targets, but not with nonfocal targets. The strength of the lexical decision task routine was manipulated by varying the number of lexical decision practice trials given before the dual-task in Experiment 5. The strength of the routine did not affect task interference for focal or nonfocal targets. Overall, monitoring did not follow the sustained-attention pattern observed in vigilance. Prospective memory can be performed utilizing both cognitive mechanisms of monitoring and spontaneous retrieval.

The goal habituation model of vigilance proposed by Ariga and Lleras (2011) posits that it is possible to attenuate the vigilance decrement (the decline in performance that occurs with time-on-task) through dis-habituation of a vigilance task’s goal. The goal in a vigilance task is to detect critical signals. Hence, a switch away from this goal should dishabituate the task goal. When a person resumes the vigilance task, the person’s performance should improve. Follow up studies to the Ariga and Lleras study have not found supporting evidence (Helton & Russell, 2011; 2012). The methods in these follow up studies differed from those of Ariga and Lleras in a number of ways. The present study attempts to replicate the original Ariga and Lleras (2011) work using methods that more closely follow the original study. The present research sought to uncover confounds in the original article through replicating the original task and manipulating variables in line with hypotheses made by attentional resource theory. Overall, the results of this research present a challenge to the goal habituation model. Rest breaks, not goal switching; lessened the magnitude of the decline in sensitivity with time on task, while task switching resulted in a temporary re-correction of increasingly conservative responding that occurred with greater time on task. We also found support for the context dependent relationship of task-unrelated thought, (TUT) and task demand. Given that the vigil was determined to impose relatively low workload, pre-task TUT was associated with average performance rather than post-task TUT. Finally, we discuss the dangers of over compliance with signal detection theory (SDT) measures. We explain that SDT sensitivity and bias measures are not independent given responding floor and ceiling effects during low demanding tasks such as the present. It is argued that this may have distorted the original conclusion arrived at by Ariga and Lleras (2011).

One of the overarching questions in the field of infant perceptual and cognitive development concerns how selective attention is organized during early development to facilitate learning. The following study examined how infants’ selective attention to properties of social events (i.e., prosody of speech and facial identity) changes in real time as a function of intersensory redundancy (redundant audiovisual, nonredundant unimodal visual) and exploratory time. Intersensory redundancy refers to the spatially coordinated and temporally synchronous occurrence of information across multiple senses. Real time macro- and micro-structural change in infants’ scanning patterns of dynamic faces was also examined. According to the Intersensory Redundancy Hypothesis, information presented redundantly and in temporal synchrony across two or more senses recruits infants’ selective attention and facilitates perceptual learning of highly salient amodal properties (properties that can be perceived across several sensory modalities such as the prosody of speech) at the expense of less salient modality specific properties. Conversely, information presented to only one sense facilitates infants’ learning of modality specific properties (properties that are specific to a particular sensory modality such as facial features) at the expense of amodal properties (Bahrick & Lickliter, 2000, 2002). Infants’ selective attention and discrimination of prosody of speech and facial configuration was assessed in a modified visual paired comparison paradigm. In redundant audiovisual stimulation, it was predicted infants would show discrimination of prosody of speech in the early phases of exploration and facial configuration in the later phases of exploration. Conversely, in nonredundant unimodal visual stimulation, it was predicted infants would show discrimination of facial identity in the early phases of exploration and prosody of speech in the later phases of exploration. Results provided support for the first prediction and indicated that following redundant audiovisual exposure, infants showed discrimination of prosody of speech earlier in processing time than discrimination of facial identity. Data from the nonredundant unimodal visual condition provided partial support for the second prediction and indicated that infants showed discrimination of facial identity, but not prosody of speech. The dissertation study contributes to the understanding of the nature of infants’ selective attention and processing of social events across exploratory time.

Dans ce travail de thèse, nous proposons d'étudier les méthodes d'évaluation de l'attention ainsi que son implication dans la gestion de la difficulté dans le contexte du jeu vidéo. La prise en compte des processus attentionnels joue un rôle important dans la construction des interfaces homme-machine. La perturbation de ces processus peut, symétriquement, servir de variable d'ajustement des difficultés rencontrées dans les challenges proposés par les game designers. Notre première démarche a consisté à mesurer des temps de réaction de l'utilisateur dans un contexte de jeu sérieux. L'algorithme développé a permis, par une analyse des trajectoires du pointeur contrôlé par le joueur, de détecter des valeurs anormales de temps de réaction. Cela nous a amené à étudier dans quelle mesure la quantité d'information présentée à l'écran pouvait altérer les performances d'un joueur. Notre deuxième approche a consisté donc à mesurer les effets produits par une variation du champ de vision choisi sur la caméra virtuelle dans les jeux à la première personne. Dans la suite de ce travail, nous avons étudié dans quelle mesure la distribution de l'attention d'un utilisateur sur plusieurs dispositifs pour réaliser une simple tâche pouvait modifier les performances comparativement à un dispositif unique. Cette étude a montré que l'utilisation de deux dispositifs en parallèle provoque une augmentation significative de la difficulté. / In this thesis, we study attention evaluation methods and their application to the management of difficulty within the context of video games. The consideration of attentional processes plays an important role in the development of human-computer interfaces. The disruption of these attentional processes can be used symmetrically as a variable for adjusting game difficulty. Our first approach was to measure user reaction time, which we did in the context of a serious game. By analyzing the trajectories of a mouse cursor controlled by the player, our approach allows us to detect abnormal reaction time values. This led us to consider how the amount of information displayed on screen could alter player performance. Our second approach, therefore, was to measure the effects produced by variations in the field of view of the virtual camera in a 3D first-person game. Finally, we studied how the distribution of user attention across multiple devices for the execution of a simple task could affect performance relative to the use of a single device. This study showed that the use of two devices in parallel causes a significant increase in difficulty.

Social engagement has been clearly associated with socio-developmental outcomes in clinical and at-risk populations of infants, who show deficits in gaze following, face processing, and joint attention. Importantly, these are all skills related to language learning. This is most prominently illustrated by individuals with autism, for whom social engagement and language are markedly dysfunctional. In contrast, for typically developing infants the parameters of social engagement and language learning have only been generally defined. The present study was designed to relate infants' social attention to later language outcomes. In this longitudinal study, 11-month-old infants participated in social attention tasks (distracter, gaze following and face scanning tasks); at 14 months, infants returned to participate in language (word/object association) and joint attention (Early Social Communication Scales) tasks; at 18-20 months, caregivers reported on language (vocabulary size) and autistic symptomatology (developmental screening measures). Overall, the results indicated that measures of social attention predict later language outcomes. In particular, joint attention accounted for 13% of the variance in infants' word/object association performance at 14-months. More frequent response to the joint attention bids of an adult female tester (e.g., looking in the direction of her pointing) was associated with better word/object association learning. With regard to vocabulary size, two tasks emerged as significant predictors, the distracter and joint attention tasks, which together accounted for 38% of the variance in language at 18-months. Specifically, longer latencies (i.e., less distractibility) to look away from the face when an adult female was speaking (distracter task) and more frequently responding to the attention bids of the tester were associated with a larger productive vocabulary size. / Ph. D.

published_or_final_version / Psychology / Master / Master of Philosophy