Sustained Attention: Exogenous or Endogenous control? Evidence by a Continuous Attentional Orienting Task (CAOT).

It has been hypothesized that top-down (endogenous) attentional processes are implied in modulatingsustained attention (SA) over time. In order to differentiate the involvement of endogenous and exogenous attentionalprocesses in SA decrease over time, we originally devised a Continuous Attentional Orienting Task (CAOT), which isa combination of the Continuous Performance Task (Rosvold et al., 1956) and the Spatial Cueing paradigm (Posner,1980). This task permits to differentiate the respective involvement of endogenous and exogenous spatial attentionprocesses in the SA decrease over time. We expected performance in the endogenous condition, compared to theexogenous condition, to be more vulnerable to deterioration. Indeed, we observed a RT increase over time only in theendogenous cueing task condition. These results are consistent with an endogenous attentional control on sustainedattention.