On the Locus of the Practice Effect in Sustained Attention Tests.

The present study set out to explore the locus of the poorly understood but frequently reported and comparatively large practice effect in sustained attention tests. Drawing on a recently proposed process model of sustained attention tests, several cognitive tasks were administered twice in order to examine which specific component of test performance benefitted from practice and to which extent. It was shown that the tasks representing the three sub-components of sustained attention tests, namely the perception of an item, the simple mental operation to solve an item, and the motor reaction to indicate a response to an item, benefitted from practice.

Towards a Process Model of Sustained Attention Tests.

Taking up new approaches and calls for experimental test validation, in the present study we propose and validate a process model of sustained attention tests. Four sub-components were postulated: the perception of an item, a simple mental operation to solve the item, a motor reaction, and the shift to the next item. In two studies, several cognitive tasks and modified versions of the d2-R test of sustained attention were applied in order to determine performance in the proposed sub-components.

[Diagnostic judgement and evaluation].

The present article provides an overview of principles and standards for diagnostic decisions and evaluation. Assessment aims to answer concrete questions. Clinical and statistical judgements represent two strategies for the integration of diagnostic information.

[Modification of performance by activation in the elderly].

The effects of activation on performance are rarely investigated in older people. An experiment on the effects of psychic activation on free recall of word lists is reported. Participants were healthy women (N = 71) of two age groups (60-69 versus 70-79 years).