title: Impaired sustained attention and error awareness in traumatic brain injury: implications for insight.
abstract: The processes of error awareness and sustained attention were investigated in 18 traumatic brain injury (TBI) individuals and 16 matched control participants. In Experiment 1, we found that: (1) in comparison to controls, TBI participants displayed reduced sustained attention and awareness of error during the Sustained Attention to Response Task; (2) degree of error awareness was strongly correlated with sustained attention capacity, even with severity of injury partialed out; and (3) that error feedback significantly reduced errors. We replicated the finding of a correlation between error awareness and sustained attention capacity in Experiment 2 with a separate sample of 19 TBI participants and 20 controls. We conclude that TBI leads to impaired sustained attention and error awareness. The finding of a significant relationship between these two deficits in TBI suggests there may be a link between these two processes. Feedback on error improves sustained attention performance of control and TBI participants.
authors.affiliation: Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: McAvinue
authors.forename: Fiadhnait
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: O'Keeffe
authors.forename: Deirdre
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: McMackin
authors.forename: Ian H
authors.initials: IH
authors.lastname: Robertson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001007:Anxiety / Q000209:etiology; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000209:etiology*; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology*; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003863:Depression / Q000209:etiology; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D005246:Feedback / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D015600:Glasgow Coma Scale / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D011932:Reading; D013997:Time Factors; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology