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Optokinetic nystagmus as an assessment of visual attention to divided stimuli

Version 2 2024-06-05, 06:51
Version 1 2020-10-16, 08:17
journal contribution
posted on 2024-06-05, 06:51 authored by IM Williams, L Mulhall, J Mattingley, C Lueck, Larry AbelLarry Abel
Attentional resources are finite and decline with age. We measured subjects' abilities to generate optokinetic nystagmus (OKN), to suppress it with fixation and to continue to suppress it when fixating while simultaneously paying covert attention to a feature of the optokinetic (OK) stimulus. During fixation with a red laser spot, OKN was almost fully suppressed. When subjects suppressed the OKN while simultaneously paying covert attention to a feature of the OK stimulus, suppression of the OKN was less well suppressed. The active OKN was vigorous. Age affected only the divided attention task, perhaps reflecting a diminution in resources of attention with age. The neural pathways serving attention and those serving eye movements appear to be closely related. We suggest the test presented here represents an objective measurement of the ability to divide attention, and that it has the potential to be developed for much more widespread, possibly clinical, use. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

History

Journal

Journal of Clinical Neuroscience

Volume

13

Pagination

828-833

Location

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

ISSN

0967-5868

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Issue

8

Publisher

Elsevier

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