Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Visual-attentional span »

There is a paucity of research examining the relative contribution of the different mechanisms of working memory (short-term storage [STM], processing speed) to children’s complex memory span. This study served to replicate and extend the few extant studies that have examined the issue. In this study, the relative contribution of three mechanisms of working memory — STM storage, processing speed, attentional resource allocation — to children’s complex span was examined. Children (6—12) completed a digit span task, an auditory-visual reaction time task, a task of attentional allocation, and a complex (listening) span task. Correlation analyses revealed that, after controlling for age, storage, processing speed, and attentional allocation significantly correlated with complex span. Regression analyses showed that, after partialling out age, storage accounted for 12.1% of unique variance in complex span and processing speed accounted for another 6.6% of unique variance; allocation contributed no unique variance. Consistent with the developmental literature, storage and general processing speed play critical roles in children’s complex span performance.

Elevated levels of anxiety are associated with attentional threat biases and inefficient attentional control, with the latter requiring sustained cognitive effort. The current study assessed self-reported and behavioral evidence of attentional functioning, along with electrodermal activity (EDA; measured via changes in skin conductance level [SCL reactivity]) as an index of sympathetic arousal, to examine whether these vulnerabilities are evident among individuals with elevated trait anxiety (non-clinical). Fifty-nine participants completed a working memory span task measuring attentional control under high cognitive load. A visual change detection task assessed stimulus-driven attention as an indicator of vigilance to non-threatening visual information. Trait anxiety was self-reported. SCL was captured at rest and during the working memory task. Results revealed that trait anxiety was positively related to speed of visual change detection, without accuracy costs, suggesting enhanced vigilance for neutral visual information among those higher in trait anxiety. Trait anxiety also moderated the relation between change detection speed and attentional control, such that attentional vigilance was not associated with variation in attentional control for individuals higher in trait anxiety. However, for individuals lower in trait anxiety, vigilance was negatively associated with attention control. The relationship between vigilance and attentional control was also moderated by SCL reactivity such that the association was only significant at lower SCL reactivity levels. Taken together, results suggest that individuals higher in trait anxiety demonstrate greater attentional control in the service of visual detection, but greater attentional control may come at the cost of increased sympathetic arousal.

Introduction The relationship between attentional functioning and mindfulness is an intensive field of study, mainly in face-to-face interventions. However, no neuropsychological study addressed the effect of online mindfulness-based interventions on this cognitive function.ObjectivesTo assess changes on attentional functioning after two online mindfulness-based group interventions in adult patients with anxiety disorders.MethodsThis study was carried out in a Mental Health Unit in Spain (Colmenar Viejo, Madrid). Thirteen adult patients (age mean = 51.69 years, ranging from 33 to 69 years, S.D. = 11.56) with anxiety disorders completed the interventions. The group treatments were Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and a Mindfulness-based Emotional Regulation intervention, during 8 weeks, guided by two Clinical Psychology residents. Both interventions were carried out online. The dependent variables were the scores on the TMT-A (seconds), Digit span forward and Longest digit span forward (WAIS-IV). A comparison of paired-means was conducted. Statistical significance was set at p < .05.ResultsThe normality assumption was met except for Longest digit span forward. The paired t-test showed statistically significant change between pre-treatment and post-treatment on TMT-A [t(12)= 3.81; p = 0.002; Cohen’s d = 1.056; statistical power observed = 94.0%], but not on Digit span forward (p = .45). Wilcoxon signed ranks test showed no statistically significant change on Longest digit span forward (p = .56).ConclusionsThese results show a large improvement on visual attention and speed of visuomotor tracking, but not on auditive attention, after both online mindfulness-based group interventions.DisclosureNo significant relationships.

An experimental study was performed testing whether a small dose of alcohol would lead to larger decrements in simple visual reaction time for peripheral signals compared to central ones. Analysis indicated such an effect of alcohol, which was discussed as supportive of an interpretation in terms of impaired peripheral sensory sensitivity rather than a redistribution of attention within the visual field.

Recently, Bélanger, Slattery, Mayberry and Rayner showed, using the moving-window paradigm, that profoundly deaf adults have a wider perceptual span during reading relative to hearing adults matched on reading level. This difference might be related to the fact that deaf adults allocate more visual attention to simple stimuli in the parafovea. Importantly, this reorganization of visual attention in deaf individuals is already manifesting in deaf children. This leads to questions about the time course of the emergence of an enhanced perceptual span (which is under attentional control) in young deaf readers. The present research addressed this question by comparing the perceptual spans of young deaf readers (age 7-15) and young hearing readers (age 7-15). Young deaf readers, like deaf adults, were found to have a wider perceptual span relative to their hearing peers matched on reading level, suggesting that strong and early reorganization of visual attention in deaf individuals goes beyond the processing of simple visual stimuli and emerges into more cognitively complex tasks, such as reading.

Dyslexia is a specific disorder in reading abilities. The aim of this study was to explore whether a short visual attentional training could improve reading capabilities in children with reading disorders by changing their oculomotor characteristics. Two groups (G1 and G2) of 25 children with reading disabilities and who are matched in IQ (intelligence quotient), sex, and age participated in the study. The allocation of a subject to a specific group (G1 = experimental group; G2 = control group) was generated in an unpredictable random sequence. The reading task was recorded twice for G1, i.e., before (T1) and after (T2) 10 min of visual attentional training. Training consisted of oculomotor tasks (saccades and pursuits movements) and searching tasks (three different exercises). For G2, the two reading tasks at T1 and T2 were done at an interval of 10 min instead. We found that at T1, oculomotor performances during reading were statistically similar for both groups of children with reading disabilities (G1 and G2). At T2, the group G1 only improved oculomotor capabilities significantly during reading; in particular, children read faster, and their fixation time was shortest. We conclude that short visual attentional training could improve the cortical mechanisms responsible for attention and reading capabilities. Further studies on a larger number of dyslexic children will be necessary in order to explore the effects of different training types on the visual attentional span given its important role on the orienting and focusing visuospatial attention and on the oculomotor performance in children with dyslexia.

Abstract. To prevent forgetting in working memory, the attentional refreshing is supposed to increase the level of activation of memory traces by focusing attention. However, the involvement of memory traces reactivation in refreshing relies in the majority on indirect evidence. The aim of this study was to show that refreshing relies on the reactivation of memory traces by investigating how the reactivation of an irrelevant trace prevents the attentional refreshing to take place, and (2) the memory traces reactivated are sensorial in nature. We used a reactivated visual mask presented during the encoding (Experiment 1) and the refreshing (Experiment 2) of pictures in a complex span task. Results showed impaired serial recall performance in both experiments when the mask was reactivated compared to a control stimulus. Experiment 3 confirmed the refreshing account of these results. We proposed that refreshing relies on the reactivation of sensory memory traces.

Classroom noise, particularly irrelevant speech or background babble noise, can have detrimental effects on academic tasks and learning more generally. Researchers have proposed two alternative explanations of the interference of babble noise on non-auditory academic tasks, such as reading or math: i) Babble noise may generate interference on these tasks due to the automatic access of speech sounds (babbling) to phonological short-term memory; or ii) by capturing children's attention, thereby diverting general attentional resources from the task. To test these hypotheses, we asked 3rd to 5th graders to perform two visual attention and two verbal working memory tasks (digit span and reading span) in both quiet and noisy conditions. Multitalker babble noise was administered through headphones at 65dB. The results revealed significant noise effects only in the most complex verbal working memory task (reading span). Interestingly, a significant difference between conditions was also observed in one of the visual attention tasks, where higher scores were, however, achieved in the presence of noise. These preliminary findings will be discussed in light of the current literature.

De nombreuses études internationales révèlent que l’apprentissage de la lecture présente des défis spécifiques pour les enfants sourds : en France, plus de 40 % d’entre eux rencontrent des difficultés. La maîtrise de la lecture constitue un enjeu crucial pour leur socialisation et leur autonomie. Chez les enfants entendants, deux prérequis de la lecture importants émergent de la littérature scientifique : la conscience phonologique (CP), c'est-à-dire la capacité à manipuler les unités phonologiques de la langue, et l'Empan Visuo-Attentionnel (EVA), qui correspond au nombre de caractères perçus simultanément en une fixation oculaire.Inspiré par les modèles de lecture à double voie, le développement de la lecture chez les enfants sourds a été principalement étudié sous l’angle de l’hypothèse phonologique. Cependant, en raison de l'accès limité à la phonologie chez les enfants sourds et de l'opacité du français, cette approche est débattue. Parallèlement, des approches alternatives, telles que l'hypothèse visuelle, suggèrent que certains lecteurs sourds signants, performants en lecture, utilisent des stratégies visuelles spécifiques (e.g. large empan perceptif et lecture par mots-clés). Par ailleurs, des études récentes ont mis en lumière des compétences visuo-orthographiques particulières chez les enfants sourds, qu’ils utilisent la langue vocale ou la langue des signes. À ce jour, aucune étude n’a examiné précisément le rôle de l’EVA dans l’identification des mots isolés chez les enfants sourds.Notre étude se propose de tester l’hypothèse selon laquelle les bons lecteurs sourds pourraient compenser un déficit en CP par un recours à l’EVA. Pour cela, nous avons conçu une batterie de tests comprenant des tâches de détection de rimes à l’aide d’images, le traitement de chaînes de consonnes via le logiciel EVADYS, et une tâche de décision orthographique avec distracteurs phonologiques et orthographiques. L'échantillon comprend 51 enfants sourds profonds (âgés de 8 à 12 ans) et 42 enfants entendants. Nos résultats, répartis en trois volets d’analyses, montrent une grande variabilité des scores de CP et d’EVA en fonction du groupe linguistique et du niveau de lecture.La comparaison des groupes linguistiques montre que les compétences en CP sont élevées chez les entendants et sourds oralisants, mais plus faibles chez les sourds signants. En EVA, les entendants surpassent les deux groupes sourds. La comparaison en fonction du niveau de lecture montre que les lecteurs habiles obtiennent des scores de CP et d’EVA supérieurs, bien que certains lecteurs habiles aient des scores de CP relativement faibles tandis que leurs résultats sont comparables à ceux de leurs pairs habiles lecteurs, en EVA. Les modèles statistiques montrent que la CP influence principalement les enfants sourds oralisants via la lecture labiale, tandis que l’EVA joue un rôle dans l’identification des mots pour tous les groupes. La lecture labiale influence également la lecture des enfants sourds signants mais uniquement au niveau lexical. Ces résultats suggèrent que la variabilité de l’apprentissage de la lecture chez les enfants, qu'ils soient sourds ou entendants, dépend en partie de l’EVA. Ils indiquent aussi qu'une part faible des enfants sourds signants, dans notre étude, parvient à devenir de bons lecteurs sans une conscience phonologique développée. En outre, la lecture labiale émerge comme un soutien central pour la reconnaissance des mots, jouant un rôle lexical pour les sourds signants et un rôle sublexical pour les sourds oralisants.Ces résultats ouvrent des perspectives en recherche appliquée, en vue de développer des tests spécifiques pour mieux évaluer la population sourde
Numerous international studies reveal that learning to read presents specific challenges for deaf children: in France, over 40% of them encounter such difficulties. Yet, mastering reading is a crucial factor for their socialization and autonomy. For hearing children, two critical prerequisites for reading emerge from the scientific literature: phonological awareness (PA), which is the ability to manipulate phonological units of language, and the Visuo-Attentional Span (VAS), corresponding to the number of letters in consonant string perceived simultaneously in a single eye fixation.Inspired by dual-route reading models, reading development in deaf children has mainly been studied through the lens of the phonological hypothesis. However, given deaf children’s limited access to phonology and the opacity of French, this approach is debated. In parallel, alternative approaches, such as the visual hypothesis, suggest that certain deaf readers who are skilled readers rely on specific visual strategies (e.g., larger perceptual span and keyword strategy). Moreover, recent studies have highlighted unique visuo-orthographic skills in deaf children, regardless of whether they use spoken language or sign language. To date, no study has precisely examined the role of VAS in written word identification in deaf children.Our study aims to test the hypothesis that proficient deaf readers could compensate for a deficit in PA by relying on VAS. To do this, we designed a battery of tests including rhyme detection tasks using images, consonant string processing in EVADYS software, and an spelling decision task with phonological and orthographic distractors. The sample includes 51 profoundly deaf spoken and signing children (aged 8 to 12) and 42 hearing children. Our results, divided into three levels of analysis, reveal a wide variability in PA and VAS scores depending on linguistic group and reading level.Comparing linguistic groups shows that PA skills are high among hearing children and deaf spoken children but lower in deaf signers. For VAS, hearing children outperform both deaf groups. Comparison based on reading level shows that skilled readers achieve higher scores in PA and VAS, although some skilled deaf readers, whether oral, signing, or hearing, have relatively low PA scores, but results in VAS comparable to their skilled reader peers. Statistical models indicate that PA mainly influences deaf spoken children through lip-reading, whereas VAS plays a role in word identification across all groups. Lip-reading also influences lexical-level word recognition in deaf signing children.These findings suggest that the variability in reading acquisition among children, whether deaf or hearing, partly depends on VAS. They also indicate that a portion of deaf signing children, although small in our study, manages to become proficient readers without developed phonological awareness. Additionally, lip-reading emerges as a central support for word recognition, playing a lexical role for deaf signers and a sublexical role for deaf oral children.These results open perspectives in applied research, aimed at developing specific tests to better assess the deaf population

Attention is one of the most impaired cognitive functions in schizophrenia; however, the precise mechanisms underlying schizophrenia-related attention impairment are unclear. Progress in identifying these mechanisms has been hampered by using methods that are not designed to isolate specific cognitive processes. The purpose of the present dissertation was to investigate visual attention among patients with schizophrenia using the visual search paradigm — the dominant paradigm for studying attention in the cognitive sciences. Moreover, the current study used eye-tracking methodology to more finely examine the mechanisms underlying impaired visual search in this clinical population. This dissertation had three main objectives: (1) to investigate whether patients with schizophrenia have smaller and/or less dynamic visual spans, (2) to examine whether certain mechanisms guiding the visual selection of objects are impaired in schizophrenia, and (3) to determine the contribution of visual search performance to substitution test performance. Results indicated that patients’ visual spans are both smaller and less dynamic compared to healthy controls. On the other hand, selectivity for more informative distractors is intact in schizophrenia; however, impaired motion perception results in impaired target discrimination in the context of intact target selection. Results also indicated that visual search performance is a primary determinant of substitution test performance. Collectively, these data demonstrate, on one hand, an impairment among patients with schizophrenia in the distribution and flexible modulation of visual attention and, on the other hand, intact visual selective attention in the presence of strong bottom-up cues. The current data also demonstrate the important contribution of visual attention to a highly sensitive neuropsychological test and, by inference, to patients’ cognitive and real-world functioning.

Background: People had to isolate themselves due to the abrupt COVID-19 outbreak, which caused worry and anxiety. As a result, people turned to video games for enjoyment as a way to reduce stress. Prior research emphasized the detrimental consequences of video games on teen behaviours. But recently study has focused on the possibility that video games can improve neurocognitive abilities. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the effect of duration of time spent on playing video games on cognitive abilities, and impulsivity among adolescents. Methodology: Data was collected form 101 participants belonging to age group 15-18 years; those who play games for 2 hours and for 30 minutes. Non-probability convenient sampling was used. Cognitive abilities were assessed using Mackworth clock test, Corsi block Tapping Test and Tower of Hanoi test while impulsivity was assessed using Barratt impulsiveness scale-short form. Data was entered and analysed in SPSS version 20. Result: There were 50 gamers (49.50%) who play games for 2 hours and 51 gamers (50.50%) those who play games for 30 minutes. Result suggests that there is a significant difference in motor impulsivity, non-planning impulsivity, attentional impulsivity, correct responses, false alarm, mean reaction time, number of correct trials, memory span, total score, shortest and steps but no significant difference was found between time/steps. Findings also reveal that those who play games for longer period of time has scored high in impulsivity than those who play for limited amount of time. Conclusion: Gamers exhibit a wider range of cognitive abilities, particularly in the areas of vigilance, visual-spatial working memory, and problem-solving. In this study, people who played video games for two hours had higher impulsivity and better cognitive ability than those who played for only a brief time. It indicates that playing video games enhances cognitive abilities but playing them for a long-time foster impulsivity.