Repeated Measurement of the Components of Attention of Older Adults using the Two Versions of the Attention Network Test: Stability, Isolability, Robustness, and Reliability

Ishigami and Klein (2010) showed that scores of the three attention networks (alerting, orienting, and executive control) measured with the two versions of the Attention Network Test (ANT; Fan et al., 2002; Callejas et al., 2005) were robust over 10 sessions of repeated testing even though practice effects were consistently observed especially in the executive network when young adults were tested. The current study replicated their method to examine robustness, stability, reliability, and isolability of the networks scores when older adults were tested with these ANTs. Ten test sessions, each containing two versions of the ANT, were administered to 10 older adults. Participants were asked to indicate the direction of a target arrow, flanked by distractors, presented either above or below the fixation following auditory signals or/and visual cue. Network scores were calculated using orthogonal subtractions of performance in selected conditions. All network scores remained highly significant even after nine previous sessions despite some practice effects in the executive and the alerting networks. Some lack of independence among the networks was found. The relatively poor reliability of network scores with one session of data rises to respectable levels as more data is added.