Sustained Attention Ability Affects Simple Picture Naming

Sustained attention has previously been shown as a requirement for language production. However, this is mostly evident for difficult conditions, such as a dual-task situation. The current study provides corroborating evidence that this relationship holds even for simple picture naming. Sustained at...

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Main Author: Suzanne R. Jongman
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of California Press 2017-07-01
Series:Collabra: Psychology
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.collabra.org/articles/84
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author Suzanne R. Jongman
author_facet Suzanne R. Jongman
author_sort Suzanne R. Jongman
collection DOAJ
description Sustained attention has previously been shown as a requirement for language production. However, this is mostly evident for difficult conditions, such as a dual-task situation. The current study provides corroborating evidence that this relationship holds even for simple picture naming. Sustained attention ability, indexed both by participants’ reaction times and individuals’ hit rate (the proportion of correctly detected targets) on a digit discrimination task, correlated with picture naming latencies. Individuals with poor sustained attention were consistently slower and their RT distributions were more positively skewed when naming pictures compared to individuals with better sustained attention. Additionally, the need to sustain attention was manipulated by changing the speed of stimulus presentation. Research has suggested that fast event rates tax sustained attention resources to a larger degree than slow event rates. However, in this study the fast event rate did not result in increased difficulty, neither for the picture naming task nor for the sustained attention task. Instead, the results point to a speed-accuracy trade-off in the sustained attention task (lower accuracy but faster responses in the fast than in the slow event rate), and to a benefit for faster rates in the picture naming task (shorter naming latencies with no difference in accuracy). Performance on both tasks was largely comparable, supporting previous findings that sustained attention is called upon during language production.
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spelling doaj.art-308e6274644e48b28072d75a1d149bfb2022-12-22T01:57:19ZengUniversity of California PressCollabra: Psychology2474-73942017-07-013110.1525/collabra.8452Sustained Attention Ability Affects Simple Picture NamingSuzanne R. Jongman0Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, NijmegenSustained attention has previously been shown as a requirement for language production. However, this is mostly evident for difficult conditions, such as a dual-task situation. The current study provides corroborating evidence that this relationship holds even for simple picture naming. Sustained attention ability, indexed both by participants’ reaction times and individuals’ hit rate (the proportion of correctly detected targets) on a digit discrimination task, correlated with picture naming latencies. Individuals with poor sustained attention were consistently slower and their RT distributions were more positively skewed when naming pictures compared to individuals with better sustained attention. Additionally, the need to sustain attention was manipulated by changing the speed of stimulus presentation. Research has suggested that fast event rates tax sustained attention resources to a larger degree than slow event rates. However, in this study the fast event rate did not result in increased difficulty, neither for the picture naming task nor for the sustained attention task. Instead, the results point to a speed-accuracy trade-off in the sustained attention task (lower accuracy but faster responses in the fast than in the slow event rate), and to a benefit for faster rates in the picture naming task (shorter naming latencies with no difference in accuracy). Performance on both tasks was largely comparable, supporting previous findings that sustained attention is called upon during language production.https://www.collabra.org/articles/84language productionsustained attentionobject namingevent rateindividual differences
spellingShingle Suzanne R. Jongman
Sustained Attention Ability Affects Simple Picture Naming
Collabra: Psychology
language production
sustained attention
object naming
event rate
individual differences
title Sustained Attention Ability Affects Simple Picture Naming
title_full Sustained Attention Ability Affects Simple Picture Naming
title_fullStr Sustained Attention Ability Affects Simple Picture Naming
title_full_unstemmed Sustained Attention Ability Affects Simple Picture Naming
title_short Sustained Attention Ability Affects Simple Picture Naming
title_sort sustained attention ability affects simple picture naming
topic language production
sustained attention
object naming
event rate
individual differences
url https://www.collabra.org/articles/84
work_keys_str_mv AT suzannerjongman sustainedattentionabilityaffectssimplepicturenaming