The disengagement of visual attention in the gap paradigm across adolescence

Experimental Brain Research, Sep 2017

Attentional disengagement is important for successful interaction with our environment. The efficiency of attentional disengagement is commonly assessed using the gap paradigm. There is, however, a sharp contrast between the number of studies applying the gap paradigm to clinical populations and the knowledge about the underlying developmental trajectory of the gap effect. The aim of the present study was, therefore, to investigate attentional disengagement in a group of children aged 9–15. Besides the typically deployed gap and the overlap conditions, we also added a baseline condition in which the fixation point was removed at the moment that the target appeared. This allowed us to reveal the appropriate experimental conditions to unravel possible developmental differences. Correlational analyses showed that the size of the gap effect became smaller with increasing age, but only for the difference between the gap and the overlap conditions. This shows that there is a gradual increase in the capacity to disengage visual attention with increasing age, but that this effect only becomes apparent when the gap and the overlap conditions are compared. The gradual decrease of the gap effect with increasing age provides additional evidence that the attentional system becomes more efficient with increasing age and that this is a gradual process.

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The disengagement of visual attention in the gap paradigm across adolescence

The disengagement of visual attention in the gap paradigm across adolescence S. Van der Stigchel 0 1 2 R. S. Hessels 0 1 2 J. C. van Elst 0 1 2 C. Kemner 0 1 2 0 Brain Centre Rudolf Magnus, University Medical Center , Utrecht , The Netherlands 1 Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University , Utrecht , The Netherlands 2 Department of Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University , Heidelberglaan 1, 3584 CS Utrecht , The Netherlands 3 S. Van der Stigchel Attentional disengagement is important for successful interaction with our environment. The efficiency of attentional disengagement is commonly assessed using the gap paradigm. There is, however, a sharp contrast between the number of studies applying the gap paradigm to clinical populations and the knowledge about the underlying developmental trajectory of the gap effect. The aim of the present study was, therefore, to investigate attentional disengagement in a group of children aged 9-15. Besides the typically deployed gap and the overlap conditions, we also added a baseline condition in which the fixation point was removed at the moment that the target appeared. This allowed us to reveal the appropriate experimental conditions to unravel possible developmental differences. Correlational analyses showed that the size of the gap effect became smaller with increasing age, but only for the difference between the gap and the overlap conditions. This shows that there is a gradual increase in the capacity to disengage visual attention with increasing age, but that this effect only becomes apparent when the gap and the overlap conditions are compared. The gradual decrease of the gap effect with increasing age provides additional evidence that the attentional system becomes more efficient with increasing age and that this is a gradual process. Gap effect; Eye movements; Development; Attentional disengagement Introduction Because we can only execute one eye movement at a time, there is a continuous decision process to determine to which location the next eye movement will be executed. Research has shown that there are different stages of this decision process that show a developmental trajectory. In the present study, we will focus on the disengagement of visual attention. Because of the obligatory link between attention and eye movements (Rizzolatti et al. 1994) , the disengagement of attention from the current fixation location is necessary in order to program the next saccade. The efficiency of this disengagement can be measured using the gap paradigm, in which participants have the task to execute a saccade from a central fixation point to a peripheral target. By removing the fixation point before the onset of the target, the participant can already disengage from the fixation point before the target appears. This early disengagement results in a reduction in saccade latency compared to when the fixation point remains present (the so called “gap effect”, Saslow 1967) . This robust reduction in latency is independent of advance knowledge of the location of the saccade target (Walker et al. 1995). There is now ample evidence that the size of the gap effect is larger for children compared to adults (Cohen and Ross 1977, 1978; Klein 2001) , meaning that it takes children longer to disengage attention than adults. This result shows that the attentional system becomes more efficient during childhood. Attentional disengagement is important for successful interaction with our environment, such as being safe in traffic or during child–parent interactions. Because of the importance of attentional disengagement, the gap effect has been studied in various clinical populations, such as children with autism spectrum disorder (Fischer et al. 2014; Goldberg et al. 2002; Landry and Bryson 2004; van der Geest et al. 2001) and children with ADHD (Cairney et al. 2001; Munoz et al. 2003) . Especially for studies on children with autism spectrum disorder, the results have been inconclusive, with some studies showing a smaller gap effect (van der Geest et al. 2001), other studies reporting a larger gap effect (Landry and Bryson 2004) , and other studies showing no modulation of the gap effect in children with autism spectrum disorder compared to controls (Goldberg et al. 2002) . The inconsistent clinical results discussed above emphasize the need for more knowledge about the mechanisms underlying the gap effect. There is namely a sharp contrast between the number of studies applying the gap paradigm to clinical populations and the knowledge about the developmental trajectory of the gap effect. Although the differences between children and adults in the size of the gap effect are well established (Cohen and Ross 1977, 1978; Klein 2001) , findings regarding the exact developmental trajectory of the gap effect during development have been largely inconsistent. Whereas some studies observed no correlation between age and the gap effect in particip (...truncated)


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S. Van der Stigchel, R. S. Hessels, J. C. van Elst, C. Kemner. The disengagement of visual attention in the gap paradigm across adolescence, Experimental Brain Research, 2017, pp. 1-8, DOI: 10.1007/s00221-017-5085-2