Testing the Efficiency and Independence of Attentional Networks

TLDR

Three attentional networks—alerting, orienting, and executive—have been anatomically and functionally defined, and reaction‑time measures can quantify their processing efficiency. The study aims to evaluate alerting, orienting, and executive attention using the Attention Network Test (ANT) within a single 30‑minute session. The ANT measures these networks by recording reaction times across tasks in a 30‑minute test that can be administered to children, patients, and monkeys. In 40 healthy adults, the ANT produced reliable single‑subject estimates and found the three attentional networks to be largely independent, though alerting and orienting can modulate interference from flankers; the test may aid in diagnosing attentional deficits and serve as a neuroimaging activation task or genetic phenotype.

Abstract

Abstract In recent years, three attentional networks have been defined in anatomical and functional terms. These functions involve alerting, orienting, and executive attention. Reaction time measures can be used to quantify the processing efficiency within each of these three networks. The Attention Network Test (ANT) is designed to evaluate alerting, orienting, and executive attention within a single 30-min testing session that can be easily performed by children, patients, and monkeys. A study with 40 normal adult subjects indicates that the ANT produces reliable single subject estimates of alerting, orienting, and executive function, and further suggests that the efficiencies of these three networks are uncorrelated. There are, however, some interactions in which alerting and orienting can modulate the degree of interference from flankers. This procedure may prove to be convenient and useful in evaluating attentional abnormalities associated with cases of brain injury, stroke, schizophrenia, and attention-deficit disorder. The ANT may also serve as an activation task for neuroimaging studies and as a phenotype for the study of the influence of genes on attentional networks.