Deficit of preparatory attention in children with frontal lobe epilepsy.
We compared the performance of a sustained attention task by children with epilepsy in either the frontal or temporal lobe. In a new simple task that specifically measures preparatory attention, developed recently by LaBerge, Auclair, and Siéroff [LaBerge, D., Auclair, L., & Siéroff, E. (2000). Preparatory attention: Experiment and theory. Consciousness and Cognition, 9, 396-434], patients responded to a target presented in the centre of the display and ignored a distracter presented at locations to the right or the left side of the target. The distracter was presented prior to the onset of the target and the relative frequency of the distracter to target was varied within a block of trials (from 0% to 67%). Children with frontal lobe epilepsy showed a higher mean slope of response time to the target as a function of distracter probability compared to children with temporal lobe epilepsy or compared to the response time slope of control subjects. The response time slope of children with temporal lobe epilepsy did not differ from that of control subjects. These results indicate that the presence of frontal lobe epilepsy selectively affects the capacity of these patients to resist the interference a distracter.
Auclair
L
L
Laboratoire de Psychologie Expérimentale, Paris Descartes University (Paris 5) et CNRS UMR 8581, 71 Avenue Edouard Vaillant, 92774 Boulogne, Billancourt Cedex, France. laurent.auclair@univ-paris5.fr
Jambaqué
Isabelle
I
Isabelle
Jambaqué
J
Dulac
Olivier
O
Olivier
Dulac
D
LaBerge
David
D
David
LaBerge
L
Siéroff
Eric
E
Eric
Siéroff
S
D000293:Adolescent; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000209:etiology*; D002648:Child; D017034:Epilepsy, Frontal Lobe / Q000150:complications*; D004833:Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe / Q000150:complications*; D005260:Female; D005364:Field Dependence-Independence; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology