title: Measuring vigilance while assessing the functioning of the three attentional networks: the ANTI-Vigilance task.
abstract: Vigilance could be a crucial aspect of attention that may modulate the functioning of the attentional system. Some behavioural tests, such as the Attention Network Test (ANT), have been developed to obtain an individual index of the three attentional networks (alertness, orientation, and executive control). However, alerting network measures are usually inferred using a phasic alertness task, and some indirect indexes of tonic alertness or vigilance have been proposed but not properly evaluated. The general aim for the present study is to provide the ANT with a direct measure of vigilance and then to analyse the relationship between this measure and other alternative indirect indexes. The obtained results suggest that the proposed new test (ANTI-Vigilance or ANTI-V) is useful to achieve a direct measure of vigilance and could be considered as a new tool available in cognitive, clinical or behavioural neurosciences for analysing vigilance in addition to the usual ANT scores. Other alternative indexes (such as global reaction time and global accuracy averaged across conditions) are only moderately correlated to a direct vigilance measure. As a consequence, although they may be to some extent related to the participants' vigilance level, they could not be used isolatedly as appropriate indexes of vigilance. Also, the role played by these global measures in the ANT task, which have been previously associated with some performance measures in applied areas (such as driving performance), is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Psicología Experimental y Fisiología del Comportamiento, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Granada, Campus Universitario Cartuja, s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain. jroca@ugr.es
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Roca
authors.forename: Cándida
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Castro
authors.forename: María Fernanda
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: López-Ramón
authors.forename: Juan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lupiáñez
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology; D011340:Problem Solving / Q000502:physiology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult