Development of an eye-tracking method to assess mental set switching in people with aphasia. Brain Inj 2017;31(5):686-696
Date
04/14/2017Pubmed ID
28406332DOI
10.1080/02699052.2017.1290277Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85017438453 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 2 CitationsAbstract
BACKGROUND: Deficits in cognitive flexibility contribute to impaired functional communication in people with aphasia. Understanding the relationship between functional communication and cognitive flexibility in people with neurologic communication disorders is important. However, traditional methods to assess mental set switching pose significant linguistic, cognitive and motoric response confounds. Eye-tracking methods have great potential to address these challenges.
AIMS: The goal of this study was to develop and validate an eye-tracking method to index mental set switching in individuals without neurological impairment based upon performance on a nonlinguistic switching task.
METHODS: Eye movements of 20 adults without communication disorders were recorded as they completed a switching task, requiring participants to match stimuli to one or two search criteria (colour or shape) in single- and mixed-task conditions. Differences between single and mixed conditions were assessed with eye-tracking measures. Performance on the eye-tracking task was compared to standardized measures of cognitive flexibility.
RESULTS: Eye-tracking measures indexed significant differences between nonswitch and switch trials within and between single- and mixed-task condition. Some standardized assessment measures correlated significantly with the eye movement measures.
CONCLUSIONS: Results support the construct validity of the novel eye-tracking method for assessing cognitive switching in language-normal adults. Clinical and research implications are discussed.
Author List
Heuer S, Pinke MLAuthor
Sabine Heuer PhD Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders department at University of Wisconsin - MilwaukeeMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
Activities of Daily LivingAdult
Aphasia
Attention
Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity
Case-Control Studies
Executive Function
Eye Movements
Female
Humans
Male
Neuropsychological Tests
Photic Stimulation
Psychomotor Performance
Reproducibility of Results
Young Adult
