title: Dysfunctional personality traits in adolescence: effects on alerting, orienting and executive control of attention.
abstract: The present study examined attentional networks performance in 39 adolescents with dysfunctional personality traits, split into two group, Group < 10 and Group ≥ 10, according to the number of criteria they met at the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Personality Disorders. The attentional performance has been tested by means of a modified version of the Attentional Network Test (ANTI-V) which allows testing both phasic and tonic components of the alerting system, the exogenous aspect of the orienting system, the executive network and their interactions. Results showed that the orienting costs of having an invalid spatial cue were reduced in the Group ≥ 10 criteria compared to the Group < 10. Moreover, adolescents included in the Group ≥ 10 showed lower conflict when attention was cued to the target location (valid trials) but showed normal interference when there was no overpowering focus of attention (invalid trials). The results found with ANOVA after splitting the sample into two categorical groups were also observed in a complementary correlation analysis keeping intact the continuous nature of such variables. These findings are consistent with the notion that dysfunctional features of personality disorders may represent the psychological manifestations of a neuropsychological abnormality in attention and executive functioning. Finally, we discuss the implications of this attentional anomaly for dysfunctional personality traits and behaviour.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, "Sapienza" University of Rome, Via dei Marsi, 78, 00185, Rome, Italy. maria.casagrande@uniroma1.it.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Casagrande
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, "Sapienza" University of Rome, Via dei Marsi, 78, 00185, Rome, Italy.|Department of Experimental Psychology and Physiology of Behaviour, Mind, Brain, and Behaviour Research Center, University of Granada, Granada, Spain.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Marotta
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, "Sapienza" University of Rome, Via dei Marsi, 78, 00185, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Valeria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Canepone
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, "Sapienza" University of Rome, Via dei Marsi, 78, 00185, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Alfredo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Spagna
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Neuroscience, University of Rome "Tor Vergata", via Montpellier 1, 00133, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Caterina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rosa
authors.affiliation: Centro di Terapia Metacognitiva Interpersonale, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Giancarlo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Dimaggio
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Neuroscience, University of Rome "Tor Vergata", via Montpellier 1, 00133, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Augusto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pasini
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001143:Arousal; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000209:etiology*; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000150:complications*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011930:Reaction Time; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological; D013223:Statistics as Topic
keywords: Attention network test; Attentional networks; Cognitive control; Exogenous orienting; Personality disorders