Objective:
We sought to examine the relationship between a validated visual attention measure (Spatial Span) and a circular visual tracking (CVT) paradigm that has shown sensitivity to attentional degradation.
Background:
Oculomotor assessment is useful in characterizing visual attention due to the large overlap between the neural networks for attentional and oculomotor controls. Therefore, it can be a valuable supplement to conventional neurocognitive assessments of attention and executive function.
Methods:
137 healthy adults without history of head injury, sensory impairment, substance abuse, neurological, or psychiatric disorders completed a circular visual tracking task and the Spatial Span task. Pearson correlations were used to examine the relationship between these two assessments of visual-spatial attention.
Results:
Results showed weak correlations between target measures. Some correlations were statistically significant (p<.05), particularly between Spatial Span backward scores and CVT parameters, suggesting shared commonalities between tasks involving mental manipulation of visual information.
Conclusions:
CVT and Spatial Span are conceptually related as visual attention metrics given shared underlying neural mechanisms. While results showed weak, albeit significant correlations, some differences in performance may be accounted for by differences in testing modality. As part of a separate multi-site study of predictive attention, we will further examine the relationship between CVT and Spatial Span using an alternate modality of Spatial Span (electronic version) to provide additional conceptual support for CVT as an attention metric. Our efforts will contribute to a growing literature on the assessment of attention and cross-modality validation, with applications to the assessment of populations in which attention is vulnerable to impairment. Disclosure: Dr. Wasserman has nothing to disclose. Dr. Larsen has nothing to disclose. Dr. Asiedu has nothing to disclose. Dr. Tseretopoulos has nothing to disclose. Dr. Spielman has nothing to disclose. Dr. Ghajar has nothing to disclose.