Testing the efficiency and independence of attentional networks. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • In recent years, three attentional networks have been defined in anatomical and functional terms. These functions involve alerting, orienting, and executive attention. Reaction time measures can be used to quantify the processing efficiency within each of these three networks. The Attention Network Test (ANT) is designed to evaluate alerting, orienting, and executive attention within a single 30-min testing session that can be easily performed by children, patients, and monkeys. A study with 40 normal adult subjects indicates that the ANT produces reliable single subject estimates of alerting, orienting, and executive function, and further suggests that the efficiencies of these three networks are uncorrelated. There are, however, some interactions in which alerting and orienting can modulate the degree of interference from flankers. This procedure may prove to be convenient and useful in evaluating attentional abnormalities associated with cases of brain injury, stroke, schizophrenia, and attention-deficit disorder. The ANT may also serve as an activation task for neuroimaging studies and as a phenotype for the study of the influence of genes on attentional networks.

publication date

  • April 1, 2002

Research

keywords

  • Attention
  • Cognition Disorders
  • Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted
  • Head Injuries, Closed

Identity

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 0036533932

PubMed ID

  • 11970796

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 14

issue

  • 3