Of the three subtypes of attention outlined by the attentional subsystems model, alerting (vigilance or arousal needed for task completion) and executive control (the ability to inhibit distracting ...information while completing a goal) are susceptible to age-related decline, while orienting remains relatively stable. Yet, few studies have investigated strategies that may acutely maintain or promote attention in typically aging older adults. Music listening may be one potential strategy for attentional maintenance as past research shows that listening to happy music characterized by a fast tempo and major mode increases cognitive task performance, likely by increasing cognitive arousal. The present study sought to investigate whether listening to happy music (fast tempo, major mode) impacts alerting, orienting, and executive control attention in 57 middle and older-aged adults (
= 61.09 years, SD = 7.16). Participants completed the Attention Network Test (ANT) before and after listening to music rated as happy or sad (slow tempo, minor mode), or no music (i.e., silence) for 10 min. Our results demonstrate that happy music increased alerting attention, particularly when relevant and irrelevant information conflicted within a trial. Contrary to what was predicted, sad music modulated executive control performance. Overall, our findings indicate that music written in the major mode with a fast tempo (happy) and minor mode with a slow tempo (sad) modulate different aspects of attention in the short-term.
Public alerting is a major challenge in a world where risks and communication modes are constantly evolving. Since a few years, new massive alerting tools geolocating the population in real time ...(Cell Broadcast or Location-Based SMS) have been deployed at national level in several countries. However, this evolution does not always reach with local needs. Decision-makers can use a wide multiplicity of tools and this can induce vulnerability differences from one territory to another. To help decision makers in their choice of equipment, this study proposes a Spatial Decision Support System and applied it in 40 various French municipalities in order to observe how 13 alerting tools are adapted (or not) to the characteristics of the municipalities. Early findings highlighted a great diversity of adapted tools between municipalities and within municipalities, in different alert zones. Alerting tool equipment must be considered at an infra-municipal scale to fully consider the diversity of alert zones. The greater the number of inhabitants, the more diverse the alerting tools needed. Also, few tools are suitable for municipalities with a low population and poor access to telecommunication networks. Finally, as tools geolocating individuals are suitable for highly populated municipalities, such national equipment shall not be used on small alert zones involving few individuals.
•Facing disasters, characteristics of territories influence the alerting tools required.•A spatial decision support system is applied to see how 13 alerting tools fit in 40 French municipalities.•The greater the number of inhabitants, the more diverse the alerting tools needed.•National LBAS (Location-Based Alerting Systems) are poorly adapted to municipal scale.•Few tools are suitable for municipalities with a low population and poor access to telecommunication networks.
•This article connects work in multitasking with attentional networks.•It reviews efforts to improve these networks by training.•It proposes to improve multitasking and reduce addiction.
To ...understand the problem of multitasking, it is necessary to examine the brain's attention networks that underlie the ability to switch attention between stimuli and tasks and to maintain a single focus among distractors. In this paper we discuss the development of brain networks related to the functions of achieving the alert state, orienting to sensory events, and developing self-control. These brain networks are common to everyone, but their efficiency varies among individuals and reflects both genes and experience. Training can alter brain networks. We consider two forms of training: (1) practice in tasks that involve particular networks, and (2) changes in brain state through such practices as meditation that may influence many networks. Playing action video games and multitasking are themselves methods of training the brain that can lead to improved performance but also to overdependence on media activity. We consider both of these outcomes and ideas about how to resist overdependence on media. Overall, our paper seeks to inform the reader about what has been learned about attention that can influence multitasking over the course of development.
Attention and executive function (EF) are vulnerable to aging. However, whether all these functions generally decline with aging is not known. Furthermore, most evidence is based on cross-sectional ...data and fewer follow-up data are available in the literature. Longitudinal follow-up studies are necessary to characterize individualized and precise changes in cognitive function. Additionally, relatively few aging studies have included middle-aged adults to examine age-related differences in attention and EF. Therefore, this study aims to examine whether general or specific attention and EF decline with aging from adulthood to old age by combining cross-sectional and longitudinal follow-up approaches.
This study recruited 253 participants aged 20 to 78 years. passing a prescreening procedure (see main text for detail) for the baseline session, and 123 of them were invited to return 1 ~ 2 years after their first visit to participate in the follow-up session. The participants completed a series of attention and EF tasks at both the baseline and follow-up sessions, which measured alerting, orienting, conflict control, stopping, memory updating, and switching abilities. We applied linear and nonlinear regression models to evaluate the cross-sectional age effect on attention and EF and employed a modified Brinley plot to inspect follow-up performance against baseline in attention and EF.
The results of cross-sectional data showed that older adults exhibited decreased efficiency in alerting, stopping, and memory updating but paradoxically increased efficiency in conflict control and switching abilities and no changes in orienting efficiency with age. However, the results of longitudinal data showed that only alerting and memory updating continued to show decreased efficiency. Furthermore, conflict control and switching showed increased efficiency with aging, whereas the orienting network, and stopping no longer showed decreased efficiency.
Thus, converging the cross-sectional and longitudinal data showed that the alerting and memory updating function exhibited the most robust deficit with age (cross-sectional) and aging (longitudinal). Alerting and memory updating abilities are crucial survival skills for human beings. Therefore, developing methods to prevent and improve an individual's alertness and working memory ability is an important practical issue in aging research.
Stimuli presented simultaneously with behaviorally relevant events (e.g., targets) are better memorized, an unusual effect defined as the attentional boost effect (ABE). We hypothesized that all ...types of behaviorally relevant events, including attentional cues, can promote the encoding process for the stimuli paired with them, and the attentional alerting network can amplify the ABE. The two experiments we conducted demonstrated that not all behaviorally relevant events, including alerting cues, benefit the processing of concurrently paired stimuli. We also found that the presence of a cue prior to a target can extend the memory advantage produced by target detection, but this advantage can only be observed within a limited range of time. Overall, our study provides the first evidence that the alerting network plays an important role in the ABE.
Introduction Medical emergencies occurring onboard commercial flights are exceedingly rare, however if it happens, they put cabin-, flight crew and fellow passengers under enormous stress levels. The ...use of a Health Monitoring System could aid the cabin crew in early detecting critical health conditions. Additionally, for passengers there is no possibility to discreetly inform the crew about emergencies since there is only a Passenger Call Button available. Research Question This paper analyses passengers´ user acceptance of the Health Monitoring System as well as the Emergency Button. Method Participants needed to complete an online survey and were presented prototypes of the Health Monitoring System as well as the Emergency Button. User acceptance was measured using the Van der Laan scale. A total of 41 participants contributed to the study. Result The user ratings for the Onboard Health Monitoring System were low mainly due to privacy concerns of the passengers. Since only one use case for the Emergency Button has been presented to the participants of the study, the user acceptance ratings were also low. Discussion Passengers were reluctant to share sensitive data. However, the majority (over 70%, n≥ 11, effective sample size=16)) agreed to have the most important vital signs such as heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, oxygen saturation measured. Conclusion To increase user acceptance of the Health Monitoring System it is important for the passengers to ensure that sensitive data is handled and stored carefully. Additional detailed usability assessments would be necessary for both devices to draw further conclusions about system design.
Objective
The purpose of this study was to investigate attentional network functional characteristics in patients with cervical dystonia (CD).
Methods
A total of 29 patients with CD and 26 healthy ...controls (HCs) were recruited. All subjects participated in the study and underwent the Attention Network Test (ANT), which evaluated the efficiencies of three independent attention networks (alerting, orienting, and executive control), as well as reaction time (RT) and accuracy.
Results
Significant differences between CD patients (9.86 ± 27.95 ms) and HCs (33.62 ± 23.41 ms) were observed in the alerting network (
t
= −3.40,
p
< 0.05). In contrast, the orienting network (
t
= 0.26,
p
= 0.79), executive control network (
Z
= −0.55,
p
= 0.58), total mean reaction time (
t
= −2.6,
p
= 0.79), and total accuracy rate (
Z
= −1.67,
p
= 0.09) showed no significant differences between the two groups.
Conclusion
Patients with CD showed a significant deficit in the alerting network. However, they did not show any deficits in the orienting or executive control network. In addition, the alerting, orienting, and executive control network functions of CD patients were all affected by the severity of torticollis, especially the alerting network function.
Previous studies have proven that it is hard for occupants to perceive concentration of indoor air pollution (IAP) and resulting indoor air quality (IAQ) on their own. Therefore, a method is needed ...to encourage them to turn their attention to actual IAP, in this context, alerting is thus suggested. However, previous studies pose limitations in that they failed to analyze the effects of alerting concentration of IAP on occupants' IAQ perception. To fill the research gap, this study sought to explore a proper strategy to help occupants have a clearer perception of IAQ. A one-month observational experiment was conducted on nine subjects under three scenarios with different alerting strategies. In addition, the visual distance estimation method was used to quantitatively analyze similar tendencies between the subject's perceived IAQ and concentration of IAP for each scenario. The experimental results confirmed that when an alerting notification was not sent, the occupants could not clearly perceive IAQ as the visual distance was the highest at 0.332. On the other hand, when the alerting notification whether the concentration of IAP exceeded the standard or not was sent, the occupants could perceive IAQ relatively clearly as the visual distance was reduced to 0.291 and 0.236. In conclusion, not only installing a monitoring device but also establishing proper alerting strategies on the concentration of IAP is essential to facilitate occupants' IAQ perception and protect occupants' health.
Display omitted
•Analyzed impacts of alerting actual IAP concentration on occupants' IAQ perception.•Proposed alerting strategy was based on occupants' IAQ perception characteristics.•Visual distance was used to estimate the similarity between perceived IAQ and IAP.•Alerting should indicate detailed concentrations of IAP to facilitate IAQ perception.•Clear IAQ perception by alerting strategy leads to proper IAP management activities.
Attention involves three functionally and neuroanatomically distinct neural networks: alerting, orienting, and executive control. This study aimed to analyze the development of attentional networks ...in children aged between 3 and 6 years using a child-friendly version of the Attentional Network Test for Interaction (ANTI), the ANTI-Birds. The sample included 88 children divided into four age groups: 3-year-old, 4-year-old, 5-year-old, 6-year-old children. The results of this study would seem to indicate that between 4 and 6 years, there are no significant changes in attentional networks. Instead, between 3 and 4 years of age, children significantly improve all their attentional skills.
Highlights • Examined associations between intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and attentional networks. • Attentional networks include alerting, orienting, and executive attention. • Among the ...attentional networks, IU only shared an association with alerting. • That association remained intact after accounting for state anxiety. • Among two IU dimensions, alerting appeared most relevant to prospective IU.
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