Nature and Measurement of Attention Control

Abstract

Individual differences in the ability to control attention are correlated with a wide range of important outcomes, from academic achievement and job performance to health behaviors and emotion regulation. Nevertheless, the theoretical nature of attention control as a cognitive construct has been the subject of heated debate, spurred on by psychometric issues that have stymied efforts to reliably measure differences in the ability to control attention. For theory to advance, our measures must improve. We introduce three efficient, reliable, and valid tests of attention control that each take less than three minutes to administer: Stroop Squared, Flanker Squared, and Simon Squared. Two studies (online and in-lab) comprising more than 600 participants demonstrate that the three “Squared” tasks have great internal consistency (avg. = .95) and test-retest reliability across sessions (avg. r = .67). Latent variable analyses revealed that the Squared tasks loaded highly on a common factor, which was strongly correlated with an attention control factor based on established measures (avg. r = .81). Moreover, attention control correlated strongly with fluid intelligence, working memory capacity, and processing speed, and helped explain their covariation. We found that the Squared attention control tasks accounted for 75% of the variance in multitasking ability at the latent level, and that fluid intelligence, attention control, and processing speed fully accounted for individual differences in multitasking ability. Our results suggest that Stroop Squared, Flanker Squared, and Simon Squared are reliable and valid indicators of attention control. The tasks are freely available online.

The Relevance of Attention Control, Not Working Memory, in Human Factors

“…It may even imply the crucial role of another WM-correlated-factor, such as reasoning ability, also known as general fluid (Gf) intelligence (Horn, 1982). In light of recent findings on the nature of cognitive abilities and their measurement (Burgoyne et al, 2023), we argue that attention control is likely more crucial than either WM or reasoning for most tasks of concern to human factors researchers and practitioners.…”

“…The tests are reliable and valid whether administered in-lab or online (Burgoyne et al, 2023). The internal consistency (split-half reliability; correlation coefficient) was 0.…”

“…The internal consistency (split-half reliability; correlation coefficient) was 0. The Conflicts squared measures account for performance in complex multitasking activities (Burgoyne et al, 2023) better than existing measures. Participants were administered both sets of attention control tasks (new and old) and a set of multitasking tests.…”

“…In recent research, Engle and colleagues (Burgoyne et al, 2023) developed and validated a new measure of attention control that not only addresses critical theoretical and methodological flaws in existing attention control measures (e.g., attention network test, antisaccade; see Table 1) but can each be administered in three minutes (compared to over 30 minutes for previous attention control tests), making them well-suited for use in applied research in operational settings. The three tasks are illustrated in Table 2.…”

A multi-faceted role of dual-state dopamine signaling in working memory, attentional control, and intelligence

“…Alternatively, various cognitive domains could all be causally influenced by a top-down process, or it could be that cognitive tasks overlap and commonly sample the same elementary functions (giving rise to positive correlations "by accident"). Although these theories get rather complicated and there are still multiple viable contenders (Kovacs and Conway, 2016;Savi et al, 2019;Protzko and Colom, 2021), here we will assume that theories that place working memory and its reliance on executive attention at their center, either as a topdown process (such as in Hierarchical Theories) or as the elementary process that overlaps among tasks (such as in the Process Overlap Theory; (Kovacs and Conway, 2016;Burgoyne et al, 2022) provide the best framework from which to assess tractable brain mechanisms for intelligence. As dopaminergic activity plays a critical role in the implementation of the working memory system, this is not only theoretically justified, but it also provides a convenient point of contact between dual-state dopamine signaling and intelligence.…”