Abstract
The attention network test (ANT) is a reliable tool to detect the efficiency of alerting, orienting, and executive control networks. However, studies using the ANT obtained inconsistent relationships between attention networks due to two reasons: on the one hand, the inter-network relationships of attention subsystems were far from clear; on the other hand, ANT scores in previous studies were disturbed by possible inter-network interactions. Here we proposed a new computing method by dissecting cue-target conditions to estimate ANT scores and relationships between attention networks as pure as possible. The method was tested in 36 participants. Comparing to the original method, the new method showed a larger alerting score and a smaller executive control score, and revealed interactions between alerting and executive control and between orienting and executive control. More interestingly, the new method revealed unidirectional influences from alerting to executive control and from executive control to orienting. These findings provided useful information for better understanding attention networks and their relationships in the ANT. Finally, the relationships of attention networks should be considered with more experimental paradigms and techniques.
Highlights
Attention plays important roles in every aspect of human behavior, ranging from basic perception to complex cognition and emotion
attention network test (ANT) scores and relationships of attention networks For ANT scores with the old method, one sample t-test showed that effects of alerting [t (35) = 15.62, p,0.001], orienting [t (35) = 19.27, p,0.001], and executive control [t (35) = 18.31, p,0.001] were all significant
The orienting score was equivalent [t (35) = 1.26, p = 0.216] between the two methods. This indicated that the ANT was a credible paradigm to detect three attention networks
Summary
Attention plays important roles in every aspect of human behavior, ranging from basic perception to complex cognition and emotion. Ishigami and Klein [28,29] reported that the double-modality ANT increases the interaction between orienting network and the other two networks These results may be affected by two reasons: first, different mechanisms under visual attention and auditory attention, or sensory integration may alter the processing of attention networks; second, the alerting signal appears twice in successive alerting and orienting cues, because the spatial cue inherently includes temporal and spatial information. The first three equations computed scores of alerting, orienting, and executive control networks, respectively. Our aims in the current study were (1) to examine ANT scores and inter-network relationships with the new computing method, and (2) to compare the efficiency of the two methods. We hypothesized that ANT scores would show some differences between the two methods, and the new method would reveal correlations and interactions between attention networks
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