Impaired sustained attention and error awareness in traumatic brain injury: implications for insight

Neuropsychol Rehabil. 2005 Dec;15(5):569-87. doi: 10.1080/09602010443000119.

Abstract

The processes of error awareness and sustained attention were investigated in 18 traumatic brain injury (TBI) individuals and 16 matched control participants. In Experiment 1, we found that: (1) in comparison to controls, TBI participants displayed reduced sustained attention and awareness of error during the Sustained Attention to Response Task; (2) degree of error awareness was strongly correlated with sustained attention capacity, even with severity of injury partialed out; and (3) that error feedback significantly reduced errors. We replicated the finding of a correlation between error awareness and sustained attention capacity in Experiment 2 with a separate sample of 19 TBI participants and 20 controls. We conclude that TBI leads to impaired sustained attention and error awareness. The finding of a significant relationship between these two deficits in TBI suggests there may be a link between these two processes. Feedback on error improves sustained attention performance of control and TBI participants.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Analysis of Variance
  • Anxiety / etiology
  • Attention / physiology*
  • Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / etiology*
  • Awareness / physiology*
  • Brain Injuries / physiopathology*
  • Case-Control Studies
  • Depression / etiology
  • Discrimination, Psychological / physiology
  • Feedback / physiology
  • Female
  • Glasgow Coma Scale / statistics & numerical data
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Memory / physiology
  • Middle Aged
  • Neuropsychological Tests / statistics & numerical data
  • Reaction Time / physiology
  • Reading
  • Time Factors
  • Verbal Behavior / physiology