Department of Psychology

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Validation and Characterization of a New Attention Task in Typically Developing Children and Adolescents
(Mount Saint Vincent University, 2012-09) Fisher, Megan Joan
Research has shown that our attentional system is comprised of three different networks: alerting, orienting, and executive control. While much research has been completed on these attentional networks, studies have most often employed the Attention Network Task (ANT). Even though the ANT is widely used in attentional research and has been revised, modified and/or adapted to be child-friendly, the fact remains that it has several psychometric and methodologically limitations. The purpose of the present study was to examine the validity of the Combined Attentional Systems Task (CAST), a new attentional task developed in response to the limitations of the ANT. A total of twenty-four typically developing children and adolescents (ages 8-16) completed the CAST. Overall, results yielded the expected main effects for orienting, alerting and executive control. Age effects were also found for participant reaction times for orienting and executive control. These findings provide support for the validity of the CAST in the age range examined in the current study.