Test of Attentional Vigilance

Attention Duration: ~23 minutes
Test of Attentional Vigilance screenshot

System Requirements

🖥️
Screen Size:
Minimum: 800×600
Recommended: 1280×800
⌨️
Keyboard required

Description

PEBL Test of Attentional Vigilance (TOAV), a version of the TOVA.

About This Test

An implementation of the T.O.V.A. (Test of Variables of Attention). A white square appears briefly on the screen with a black square within it positioned either at the top or bottom edge. Participants must respond (spacebar) only to targets where the black square is on top, withholding responses when it's on the bottom. Stimuli are presented for 100ms with a 2000ms stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). The test comprises 640 trials over 22.5 minutes. For the first half (320 trials), targets are rare (72 targets, 22.5%); for the second half (320 trials), targets are frequent (248 targets, 77.5%). This design assesses both sustained attention (detecting rare targets) and response inhibition (withholding responses to frequent targets).

Test Details

Test ID:
toav
Main File:
toav.pbl
Parameters:
3 configurable parameters
Languages:
English

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Scientific Background

Original Task References:

These references describe the original task that this PEBL implementation is based on.

  • Forbes, G. B. (1998). Clinical Utility of the Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA) in the Diagnosis of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 54 (4), 461-476.
  • Greenberg, L. M. , & Waldman, I D. (1993). Developmental normative data on the Test of Variable of Attention (T.O.V.A. tm). Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 34, 1019-1030.

Data Output

Creates two data files: (1) toav-<subnum>.csv with trial-by-trial data containing columns: sub (participant code), trial (trial number: 1-640), targ (whether trial is a target: 1=target black square on top, 0=non-target black square on bottom), toofast (whether response was anticipatory/too fast <120ms: 1=too fast, 0=normal or no response), responded (whether participant pressed spacebar: 1=responded, 0=no response), corr (trial accuracy: 1=correct, 0=incorrect; correct means responding to targets and not responding to non-targets), mult (whether multiple responses occurred: 1=yes, 0=no), time (trial start time in ms), rt (response time in ms from stimulus onset, or -1 if no response); (2) toav-report-<subnum>.txt containing summary statistics comparing performance in Half 1 (rare targets, 22.5%) vs Half 2 (frequent targets, 77.5%) including: total trials, correct targets (hits), correct foils (correct rejections), commission errors (false alarms), omission errors (misses), mean RTs (overall, correct only, errors only), RT standard deviation, anticipations (responses <120ms), and multiple responses.

About This Test

PEBL Test of Attentional Vigilance (TOAV), a version of the TOVA.

Category: Attention
Estimated Duration: 23 minutes
Available Translations: 1 language

Documentation Sources:
Test description file, Test implementation, PEBL wiki archive, Parameter schema

Documentation Status: Complete