Initial Evaluation of a New Auditory Attention Task for Assessing Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Control Attention.

Abstract

Purpose: Attention is a key cognitive function crucial for selecting and processing information. It is often divided into three components: alerting, orienting, and executive control. While there are tasks designed to simultaneously assess the attentional subsystems in the visual modality, creating an effective auditory task has been challenging, especially for clinical populations. This study aimed to explore whether a new Auditory Attention Task (AAT) measures all three attentional subsystems in neurotypical controls.

Method: Forty-eight young adults completed the AAT, where they judged the duration of the first of two tones while ignoring the second tone's duration. Executive control was assessed by comparing performance on trials with conflict (incongruent) and without conflict (congruent). The tones could also differ on frequency and performance differences between trials with same versus different frequencies measured orienting attention. A warning cue was presented before the first pure tone on half of the trials. Alerting attention was measured by comparing performance on trials with and without a warning cue.

Results: The AAT measured alerting, orienting, and executive control attention as expected. Participants were faster on warned than nonwarned trials (alerting) and on same- versus different-frequency trials (orienting). Participants were also faster and more accurate on same- versus different-duration trials (executive control). We also observed several interactions between the attentional subsystems.

Conclusions: Our results demonstrate that the AAT measured alerting, orienting, and executive control attention. However, additional work is needed to explore the AAT's utility in clinical populations, such as people with aphasia.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.29525717.