title: Moving to Capture Children's Attention: Developing a Methodology for Measuring Visuomotor Attention.
abstract: Attention underpins many activities integral to a child's development. However, methodological limitations currently make large-scale assessment of children's attentional skill impractical, costly and lacking in ecological validity. Consequently we developed a measure of 'Visual Motor Attention' (VMA)-a construct defined as the ability to sustain and adapt visuomotor behaviour in response to task-relevant visual information. In a series of experiments, we evaluated the capability of our method to measure attentional processes and their contributions in guiding visuomotor behaviour. Experiment 1 established the method's core features (ability to track stimuli moving on a tablet-computer screen with a hand-held stylus) and demonstrated its sensitivity to principled manipulations in adults' attentional load. Experiment 2 standardised a format suitable for use with children and showed construct validity by capturing developmental changes in executive attention processes. Experiment 3 tested the hypothesis that children with and without coordination difficulties would show qualitatively different response patterns, finding an interaction between the cognitive and motor factors underpinning responses. Experiment 4 identified associations between VMA performance and existing standardised attention assessments and thereby confirmed convergent validity. These results establish a novel approach to measuring childhood attention that can produce meaningful functional assessments that capture how attention operates in an ecologically valid context (i.e. attention's specific contribution to visuomanual action).
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Leeds, Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Liam J B
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4069-5121
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Hill
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Leeds, Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Rachel O
authors.initials: RO
authors.lastname: Coats
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Leeds, Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Faisal
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Mushtaq
authors.affiliation: Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Justin H G
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.affiliation: Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Lorna S
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Aucott
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Leeds, Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mon-Williams
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology*; D009068:Movement; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012984:Software; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis