![]() Neuropsychological assessment of attention is fundamental therefore, several tools have been developed for this purpose. g., going to the supermarket as part of occupational therapy). g., inability to hold a conversation without getting distracted) but they are a constraint on rehabilitation itself, especially when it is carried out in stimulating environments (e. Not only do these deficits prove to be a problem inthe performance of activities of daily living (e. 1,3 Individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ( ADHD) also exhibit a deficit in selective attention. 3 People with schizophrenia also have extraordinary difficulties in selecting relevant stimuli while inhibiting irrelevant stimuli, and therefore, any unfamiliar stimuli are likely to catch their attention momentarily. For example, people with depression perform significantly poorer on tests of selective attention since ruminative thought, characteristic of these patients, is an internal distractor that leads to a loss of vigilance. ![]() 2 Research in the normal functioning of attention in different conditions has shown that attention deficits are especially common in distinct clinical populations. ![]() Impairments in selective attention involve greater distractibility to irrelevant stimuli, or at least, to stimuli that are unrelated to completing the task. What happens when selective attention is impaired? For this reason, the correct functioning of sustained attention is a prerequisite for proper selective attention performance. This is what we call selective attention, the ability to select relevant information we are focusing on for a period of time. For performing an activity such as reading the newspaper, which requires concentration and an understanding of what has been read, it is necessary to sustain attention on the task while inhibiting distractors. In this environment, there are multiple distracting stimuli, both visual and auditory, such as the sound of the subway, the voice calling the stops, people talking and moving, etc. Let’s take a simple example: reading a newspaper in the subway. Selective attention is the ability to maintain behavioral or cognitive set in the face of distracting or competing stimuli.īased on Sohlberg and Mateer’s model, 2and specifically on the hierarchical fashion in which the five levels of attention are organized, a minimal capacity to sustain attention is required before carrying out activities that involve selective attention. The following sections will deal in more detail with selective attention, its definition, the problems faced by people with impairments affecting their functioning, as well as the assessment and rehabilitation of attention. ![]() Through clinical observation, these authors consider attention as a multidimensional cognitive capacity divided hierarchically into five levels or types of attention: focused, sustained, selective, alternating, and divided. From a neuropsychological perspective, the most relevant model has been the clinical model of attention proposed by Sohlberg and Mateer, 2a model based onthe observation of attention deficits in people who have suffered traumatic brain injuries.
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