Individual difference study in the optimal strategy for attentional control

为了找出控制注意力的最佳策略是什么，我们对自愿控制注意力的个体差异进行了实验。1)个体差异的一个来源是衰老，众所周知，衰老会导致包括注意力在内的各种额叶功能的退化。在双重任务中，参与者在回答从左耳或右耳听到的问题时寻找探针刺激。与年轻人相比，年龄较大的参与者不仅发现探针的速度较慢，而且回答问题时的干扰也比年轻人多，尤其是当他们不得不听左耳信息时。2)在第二实验中，测量了两种类型的工作记忆容量（空间工作记忆和语言工作记忆），并将其与两种类型的空间提示任务(Le。内源性和外源性控制)。研究发现，言语工作记忆能力与更多的自上而下或内源性注意力控制有关。然而，结果的方向与我们最初的预期相反，因此，高语言工作记忆的参与者在他们的注意力受到自愿控制时倾向于表现出较小的注意力获得。3)在注意力眨眼任务中，参与者必须对两个连续的目标做出反应，探索了一种新的注意力集中测量方法，侧翼任务作为第二目标。在传统的探查任务中，反应时间是衡量注意能力的标准。在汉克干扰任务中，既有对相容条件的反应时间（RT），也有相容条件与不相容条件的干扰得分（interference score）。反应时间可能是空闲注意容量的指标，干扰被认为是注意力集中的指标，注意力集中越高，干扰越低。得到的结果符合这一预期，即相容RTs所表示的注意容量是与TI间隔的单调递减函数，而注意聚焦则是与TI间隔的动态调制函数。少

In order to find out what is optimal strategy for the control of attention, we conducted experiments on individual differences in the voluntary control of attention.1) One source of individual difference is aging, which is known to bring about deterioration in the various frontal lobe functions including attention. With a dual task participants searched for a probe stimulus while answering to questions heard from either left or right ear. Compared to younger people, older participants were not only slower to detect the probe but also showed increased interference from answering to questions than younger participants, especially when they had to listen to left-ear messages.2) In the second experiment, two types of working memory capacities (both spatial and verbal working memories) were measured and they were correlated with attentional gain scores of two types of spatial cueing tasks (Le., endogenous and exogenous control). Verbal working memory capacity was found to be correlated with … More top-down or endogenous control of attention. However, the direction of the results was contrary to what we had expected initially Thus, high verbal working memory participants tended to show smaller attentional gain when their attention was under voluntary control3) In attentional blink task where participants had to respond to two successive targets, a new measure of attentional focusing was explored with flanker task as the second target. In the traditional probe task reaction time is used as a measure of attentional capacity Using Hanker interference task, both reaction time (RT) to compatible condition and interference score (difference between compatible RT and incompatible RT) were available. Reaction time may be an index of spare attentional capacity while interference was regarded as an indicator of attentional concentration with higher concentration leading to lower interference. The obtained result conformed this expectation in that attentional capacity as indicated by compatible RTs was a monotonic decreasing function of the interval from TI, while attentional focusing was dynamically modulated as a function of TI interval. Less