Report Viewer

The Test of Attentional Performance is used to evaluate the effectiveness of behavior in everyday activities. Inattentiveness can lead to not noticing important information and difficulties in recalling specific details.

 

An important aspect of behavioral control is the ability to perform an appropriate reaction under time pressure and to simultaneously inhibit an inappropriate behavioral response.

 

The Go/NoGo paradigm was developed to test this form of behavioral control, in which it is important to suppress a reaction triggered by an external stimulus to the benefit of an internally controlled behavioral response. In this paradigm, the focus of attention is directed to predictably occurring stimuli that require a selective reaction, that is, to react or not to react.

 

 A deficit in this form of behavioral control is particularly seen in patients with damage of the frontal lobe. These patients frequently show above-average reaction speeds in simple reaction tasks, where as in a Go/NoGo task they show either a much higher number of incorrect reactions, or much higher reactions times compared with the simple reaction task. The latter deficit is indicative of difficulties in decision processing in the control of behavior. Investigations with imaging techniques have provided evidence for the role played by frontal structures in executing a Go/NoGo task.

 

Two administrative forms of this test may be administered. Test Form "1 of 2" (1 of the 2 stimuli is critical): an up-right ("+") and a diagonal ("?") cross are presented in an alternating sequence on the screen. Test Form "2 of 5" (2 critical stimuli amongst 5 stimuli): A sequence of five squares with different patterns appears on the screen. Two of these squares are defined as target stimuli." (PsyTest)