Attentional blink in adolescents with varying levels of impulsivity

We explore the temporal attention function in a non-clinical sample of adolescents varying in impulsivity, as assessed with the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale. In a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation task, in which two targets (T1 and T2) were presented in close temporal proximity among distractors, participants tried to identify T1 and detect T2 in one (dual-task) experiment and only to detect T2 in a second, control (single-task) experiment. The sensitivity of T2 detection was analyzed using signal detection theory. The attentional blink – the impairment in T2 detection following the identification of T1 – was increased in magnitude and protracted in adolescents with high impulsivity, compared with those with low impulsivity. Moreover, a few more participants with high impulsivity appeared to have a blink temporally weighing toward a later time, an observation also made in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in an earlier study. Taken together, these findings suggest impairment in temporal attention in adolescents with high impulsivity. As in ADHD children, a gating deficit may play a central role in this attention impairment.