Internal validation of inhibition access task of the computerized program (TAC)?

RICHARD´S M.; INTROZZI, M.; SEOANE, F.

Brasilia

Congreso; XXXIV Congreso Interamericano de Psicología. Sociedad Interamericana de Psicología (SIP).; 2013

Sociedad Interamericana de Psicologia

Access is inhibitory function which is in charge of decreasing or attenuating the interference generated in the attentional focus by irrelevant information present in the environment. The aim of this study is to assess this process in children. To that end, a task based on the experimental paradigm from Treisman & Gelade (1980) to measure the efficiency in the operation of such inhibition, was designed. The task is part of the computerized system TAC which includes a set of tasks for assessment different regulatory mechanisms. Selecting the paradigm for measuring the inhibition of access serves two main purposes. Firstly, paradigm is widely validated extensively in cognitive psychology and, secondly, allows showing the phenomenon that we want to measure (access function). In this task the child must identify as quickly as possible and trying not to make mistakes, the presence or absence of a blue box (white or target stimulus) presented mixed among a set of distractors (blue circles and red squares). If the target stimulus is present in the test, you must press the "Z" key on the keyboard and if it is absent must press the "M". The task consists of a block of 10 trials practice, followed by three blocks of 40 trials each. The structure of each block is the same; there are four conditions of 10 trials each: the condition of 4, 8, 16 and 32 distractors. In each test half circles distractors are blue and the other half red squares. To measure the performance level of the program recorded two indices: the mean reaction times (RT) for each of the conditions and the percentage of correct answers. The higher the response times and error rates, we assume that the lower the efficiency of the access function (Darowski, Helder, Zacks, Hasher & Hambrick, 2008). This study examined if in this task is fulfilled the following internal validity criteria defined in the paradigm: 1) the increase in RT means and error rates varies depending on the condition number of distractors; 2) the increase of the RT means and percentages of errors in the condition of absence of target in relation to the condition of presence of target. To meet the proposed target, a sample of 74 children aged between 9 and 11 years, students of both sexes of a privately managed school in Mar del Plata city, was evaluated (so far).The results confirmed the two criteria described above: more interference depending on the amount of stimulation, ie a decrease in average response times and the hit rate is increased as the number of distractors. In addition, the average response times significantly higher in those trials in which the target is absent. Therefore, this enables to conclude that the inhibition of access task program presents internal validity indices making it a valid instrument for measuring the inhibition of access by the tripartite model proposed by Hasher, Lustig & Zacks (2007) and Hasher & Zacks (1988).Keywords: inhibition access; assessment; children