Poster #2 - Attention Across Action Systems: Bridging the gap in Attention Measurement Techniques Across Development

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Attention, Learning, Memory

Integrative Statement

Advances in touchscreen technology have made it possible to test children as young as 1 year old with pointing tasks to measure cognitive constructs. Most research with infants and toddlers has relied on looking paradigms, where saccade latencies provide insight into cognitive processes. Can we assume that these different action systems – looking versus pointing – similarly reflect underlying cognitive processes? As the ages during which these methods can be used converge in the preschool years, we can compare how these action systems relate to the constructs of interest. The current study asks this question about selective attention by comparing children’s eye movements and pointing responses in a touchscreen paradigm adaptation of the Infant Orienting With Attention (IOWA) task (Ross-Sheehy, Schneegans, & Spencer, 2011).

The IOWA task is a looking paradigm in which the latency of infants’ saccades to targets is compared following different types of cues (tone only, tone+valid, tone+invalid, tone+dual). Facilitation and interference scores are calculated by comparing latencies following valid and invalid cues, respectively, to tone only. We adapted this task to a touchscreen paradigm, Pop the Bubbles, in which children’s latencies to pop (touch) a bubble target are compared following the same cue types as in the IOWA task (see Figure 1). In Experiment 1, 90 preschool-aged children (4.01-5.88 years) completed Pop the Bubbles while wearing a head-mounted eye-tracker. Results showed that children always pointed accurately to target, but their first eye movement following the cue was to the incorrect side of the screen on 37% of trials overall. A one-way ANOVA comparing gaze direction accuracy across trial types showed a significant effect (F3, 359= 179.04, p < .001), with Tukey HSD tests showing significant (p < .01) differences in each pair-wise comparison (see Figure 2a). Mean latencies for eye-movements, separated by trial type and direction accuracy, are shown in Figure 2b and mean touch latencies across trial types are shown in Figure 2c. Although touch latencies are much slower overall, as expected, both touch and correct gazes show the same general pattern over trial types, whereas incorrect gazes show faster and less differentiated patterns across trial types. Following Ross-Sheehy et al. (2015), our next step will be to calculate facilitation and interference scores in both response types to evaluate whether individual differences in sensitivity to the cues correspond between action systems.

Experiment 2 is currently underway to test the same research questions in school-aged children (current n=28, range=6.11-10.96 years; target n=50, expected completion December 2018) and adults (n=16, range=19-66 years), using a simpler apparatus with two webcams capturing frontal and over-the-shoulder views, thereby reducing the need for specialized equipment. Results from this study will allow us to examine whether the correspondence between action systems changes systematically over development. These results will help bridge the gap between research with infants and adults, helping inform our understanding of developmental trajectories in sustained attention.

Authors

• Chelsea Marie Andrews, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  Non-Presenting Author

• Rebecca Ellen Leuenberger, Ripon College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristine Ann Kovack-Lesh, Ripon College
  Presenting Author

• Vanessa Simmering, ACTNext by ACT, Inc.
  Non-Presenting Author