Are Individual Differences in Absentmindedness Correlated with Individual Differences in Attention?
Abstract
We administered the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) and one of two versions of the Attention Network Test (ANT) to 200 participants. Orthogonal subtraction scores based on performance (reaction time and error rate) from selected conditions of the ANT provided measures of the efficacy of three attention components: alerting, orienting, and executive control, while the total CFQ score provided a global measure of absentmindedness. Executive control was not associated with the CFQ in either experiment. When alertness was generated by a warning tone, greater alerting effects in reaction time were associated with higher CFQ scores (greater absentmindedness). The orienting effects in accuracy obtained from the two versions of the ANT varied with absentmindedness in opposite directions, suggesting that these two tests tap different aspects of orienting.
References
1986). Performance correlates of self-reported cognitive failure and of obsessionality. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 25, 285–299.
(1982). The Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) and its correlates. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 21, 1–16.
(2000). Cognitive and emotional influences in anterior cingulate cortex. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 215–222.
(2005). Modulations among the alerting, orienting and executive control networks. Experimental Brain Research, 167, 27–37.
(2000). Dissociation of response conflict, attentional selection, and expectancy with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 97, 8728–8733.
(2008). Assessment of executive functions: Review of instruments and identification of critical issues. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 23, 201–216.
(1988). Functional localization of sustained attention. Neuropsychiatry, Neuropsychology, and Behavioral Neurology, 1, 3–20.
(2007). Individual differences in working memory capacity and divided attention in dichotic listening. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 14, 699–703.
(2001). The cocktail party phenomenon revisited: The importance of working memory capacity. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 8, 331–335.
(1996). A fronto-parietal network for rapid visual information processing: A PET study of sustained attention and working memory. Neuropsychologia, 34, 1085–1095.
(1995). Attention, intelligence, and the frontal lobes. In , The cognitive neurosciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT.
(1974). Effects of noise letters upon identification of a target letter in a nonsearch task. Perception and Psychophysics, 16, 143–149.
(2002). Testing the efficiency and independence of attentional networks. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14, 340–347.
(2003). Effects of depressed mood on objective and subjective measures of attention. Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 15, 98–104.
(2007). High perceptual load makes everybody equal: Eliminating individual differences in distractibility with load. Psychological Science, 18, 377–381.
(2007). Separate mechanisms recruited by exogenous and endogenous spatial cues: Evidence from a spatial Stroop paradigm. Journal of Experimental Psychology-Human Perception and Performance, 33, 348–362.
(2002). Dissociable executive functions in the dynamic control of behavior: Inhibition, error detection, and correction. Neuroimage, 17, 1820–1829.
(2009). Impulsive responding and the sustained attention to response task. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 31, 39–47.
(2009). The Cognitive Failures Questionnaire and its factors re-reexamined. Manuscript in preparation.
(2003). Individual differences in failing to save everyday computing work. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17, 861–868.
(2003). Chronometric explorations of disordered minds. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7, 190–192.
(2004). On the control of orienting. In , Cognitive neuroscience of attention (pp. 29–44). New York: Guilford.
(1997). Further evidence on dimensionality and correlates of the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire. British Journal of Psychology, 88, 29–38.
(1999). The absent mind: Further investigations of sustained attention to response. Neuropsychologia, 37, 661–670.
(1983). Cognitive failure – Everyday and laboratory performance. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 21, 97–100.
(1983). Distribution of attention in cognitive failure. Human Learning, 2, 221–226.
(1984). Cognitive failures in everyday life. In J.E. Harris P.E. MorrisEds., Everyday memory, actions and absent-mindedness. London: Academic Press.
(1990). Multiple factors of cognitive failure and their relationships with stress vulnerability. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 12, 49–65.
(1994). Individual differences in self reported cognitive failures: The attention hypothesis revisited. Personality and Individual Differences, 17, 727–739.
(1986). Attention to action: Willed and automatic control of behavior. In R.J. Davidson G.E. Schwartz D. ShapiroEds., Consciousness and self-regulation. NY: Plenum.
(1992). Dimensions of Everyday Memory in Young Adulthood. British Journal of Psychology, 83, 305–321.
(1975). Psychobiology of Attention. In M.S. Gazzaniga C. BlakemoreEds., Handbook of psychobiology. New York: Academic Press.
(1978). Chronometric explorations of mind. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
(1994). Attention: The mechanisms of consciousness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 91, 7398–7403.
(1973). Selection of signals. Memory and Cognition, 1, 2–12.
(1976). Visual dominance: An information-processing account of its origins and significance. Psychological Review, 83, 157–171.
(1990). The attention system of the human brain. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 13, 25–42.
(1994). Images of mind. New York: Scientific American Library.
(1979). Actions not as planned: The price of automatization. In G. Underwood R. StevensEds., Aspects of consciousness (Vol. 1, pp. 67–89). Toronto: Academic Press.
(1997). “Oops!”: Performance correlates of everyday attentional failures in traumatic brain injured and normal subjects. Neuropsychologia, 35, 747–758.
(2005). Individual differences discriminate event-related potentials but not performance during response inhibition. Experimental Brain Research, 160(1), 60–70.
(2006). The influence of ADHD and experimental context on components of attention in children. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS.
(2001). On the functional neuroanatomy of intrinsic and phasic alertness. NeuroImage, 14, S76–S84.
(2006). Alertness-training in neglect: Behavioral and imaging results. Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience, 24, 371–384.
(2006). Impact of alertness training on spatial neglect: A behavioral and fMRI study. Neuropsychologia, 44, 1230–1246.
(1987). Individual differences in selective attention: The relation of priming and interference to cognitive failure. Personality and Individual Differences, 8, 667–675.
(2005). Work stress and attentional difficulties: An initial study on burnout and cognitive failures. Work and Stress, 19, 23–36.
(1998). Sensitivity to everyday failures and cognitive inhibition: Are they related? European Review of Applied Psychology, 48, 49–56.
(2001). Predicting performance in “Go” situations: A new use for the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire? North American Journal of Psychology, 3, 481–490.
(2002). The Cognitive Failures Questionnaire Revisited: Dimensions and correlates. Journal of General Psychology, 129, 238–256.
(2003). Predicting cognitive failures from boredom proneness and daytime sleepiness scores: An investigation within military and undergraduate samples. Personality and Individual Differences, 34, 635–644.
(