The Role of Sustained Attention in the Production of Conjoined Noun Phrases: An Individual Differences Study.

ABSTRACT: It has previously been shown that language production, performed simultaneously with a nonlinguistic task, involves sustained attention. Sustained attention concerns the ability to maintain alertness over time. Here, we aimed to replicate the previous finding by showing that individuals call upon sustained attention when they plan single noun phrases (e.g., "the carrot") and perform a manual arrow categorization task. In addition, we investigated whether speakers also recruit sustained attention when they produce conjoined noun phrases (e.g., "the carrot and the bucket") describing two pictures, that is, when both the first and second task are linguistic. We found that sustained attention correlated with the proportion of abnormally slow phrase-production responses. Individuals with poor s

SUBMITTER: Jongman SR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4559420 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature