Objectives: The aim of this research was to investigate the effect of stress on VISUAL SELECTIVE (focused) ATTENTION regarding the moderating effect of personality factor of conscientiousness.Method: 60 subjects were chosen by multi-stage random sampling method with respect to personality and neuropsychological criteria of the research and were placed in three equal groups (two experimental groups and one control group, each group consisted of 20 subjects). Cognitive stressor tasks were first administered to the subjects in both experimental groups, and their VISUAL SELECTIVE ATTENTION was assessed subsequently. The control group’s VISUAL SELECTIVE ATTENTION was assessed without administrating any cognitive stressor tasks. Two indexes were used to assess the VISUAL SELECTIVE ATTENTION: counting error and classification error. The research data were analyzed by t-test for two independent samples.Results: The results showed that stress significantly increases the rate of both counting error and classification error (p<0.0001). It was also shown that conscien-tiousness contributes in stress effect and causes additional significant increase in both counting and classification errors (p<0.0001).Conclusion: The research results revealed that stress significantly reduces VISUAL SELECTIVE (focused) ATTENTION to neutral stimuli and conscien-tiousness accentuates this negative effect.

This study was devoted to investigating the effect of stress on VISUAL SELECTIVE ATTENTION according to Extraversion (E) moderating effect. The sample group was selected with respect to neuropsychological control variables by multi-session random sampling from unmarried male Tehran universities’ students (60 subjects in three equal groups (20 subjects in each group); two experimental groups and one control group). In experimental groups, subjects administered cognitive stressful tasks and then their VISUAL SELECTIVE ATTENTION was assessed. The control group subjects’ VISUAL SELECTIVE ATTENTION was assessed without administrating cognitive stressful tasks. Sum of errors in counting and errors in classification designated the VISUAL ATTENTION indexes. Results showed that stress significantly increased both counting and classification errors (p<0.001). In addition, Extraversion (E) reduced the effect of stress on both counting errors and classification errors (p<0.0001) significantly. These results revealed that stress reduces the VISUAL SELECTIVE ATTENTION to neutral stimuli and Extraversion (E) decreases this negative effect.

This research proposes on the evaluation of different brain regions in VISUAL SELECTIVE ATTENTIONal states by event-related potential (ERP) signals. SELECTIVE ATTENTION refers to the limitations of brain processing capacity in multiple simultaneous stimuli. Extracted epochs that are time-locked to stimuli onsets in each group are averaged for calculate the ERPs. In this paper, feature extraction by wavelet coefficients and time-shape features, feature selection by p-value and scattering criteria and classification by support vector machine (SVM) with Gaussian and polynomial kernels. Here, 5-fold cross validation use for result assessment. The results show that the best separation interval between responses is 100 to 400 msec by stepwise analysis method. The P3b peak on target stimuli is clearly observed in comparison with non-target stimuli. The target and non-target categories are separate with the average accuracy of 86.7% by scattering criteria and Gaussian SVM. The temporal and parietal regions of the brain have better performance in comparison with other regions. Additionally, there is no dominancy in the cerebral hemispheres. Therefore, this approach is a useful method in representation of brain activity in VISUAL SELECTIVE ATTENTIONal state.

Objective: The aim of this research was to investigate the effect of stress on SELECTIVE and focused ATTENTION according to the personality factor of agreeableness. Methods: The sample group consisted of 60 male university students who were selected via multi-session random sampling with respect to neuropsychological control variables. The subjects were divided into two experimental and one control groups (20 subjects each). After administering cognitive stressful tasks, the VISUAL SELECTIVE and focused ATTENTION of subjects in the experimental groups were assessed. The VISUAL SELECTIVE and focused ATTENTION of the subjects in the control group was assessed without administering the aforementioned tasks. Sum of errors in counting and classification errors designated the VISUAL ATTENTION indexes. Results: Results indicated that stress leads to significant increase in counting and classification errors (p<0.001). In addition, agreeableness further increased the counting error (p<0.001) and classification error (p<0.001). Conclusion: The findings of this study revealed that stress reduces the VISUAL SELECTIVE and focused ATTENTION on neutral stimuli and factor A intensifies this negative effect.

In this research, the main goal was to study the effect of stress on VISUAL SELECTIVE ATTENTION, by moderating role of to Neuroticism (N). The sample group was selected with respect to neuropsychological screening variables by multi-session random sampling from unmarried male students of the universities in Tehran (60 individuals in three equal groups (20 individuals in each group; two experimental groups and one control group). Individuals in experimental groups administered cognitive stressful tasks and subsequently their VISUAL SELECTIVE ATTENTION was assessed. The ATTENTION of VISUAL SELECTIVE control group members' was assessed without administrating cognitive stressful tasks. Sum of errors in counting and errors in classification designated as VISUAL ATTENTION indexes. Data were analyzed by oneway analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results indicated that stress significantly increased both counting and classification errors (p<0.0001). In addition, Neuroticism (N) aggravated the effect of stress on both counting error and classification error (p<0.0001) considerably. These results revealed that stress reduces the VISUAL SELECTIVE ATTENTION on neutral stimuli and Neuroticism (N) intensifies this negative effect.

It is obvious that ATTENTION is necessary for learning and if it is impacted by stress learning would be impaired. To show this negative effect a group of 40 male students were randomly selected  and then assigned to two equal size groups of control and experimental. The treatment consisted of doing cognitively stressful tasks. Both groups' SELECTIVE and focused VISUAL ATTENTIONs were measured following the treatment. The number of errors made by the experimental group in counting and categorizing stimuli was significantly higher than those committed by the control group. Hence, it can be said that stress reduces ATTENTION and subsequently learning.

Background: VISUAL ATTENTION is known as a critical base for learning. The purpose of the present study was to design, develop and evaluate the test-retest and internal consistency reliability as well as face, content and convergent validity of the computer- based SELECTIVE VISUAL ATTENTION test (SeVAT) for healthy first-grade school children.Methods: In the first phase of this study, the computer-based SeVAT was developed in two versions of original and parallel. Ten experts in occupational therapy helped to measure the content validity using the CVR and CVI methods. Face validity was measured through opinions collected from 10 first-grade children. The convergent validity of the test was examined using the Spearman correlation between the SeVAT and Stroop test. In addition, test-retest reliability was determined by measuring the intra-class correlation (ICC) between the original and parallel versions of the SeVAT in a single session. The internal consistency was calculated by Cronbach's alpha coefficients. Sixty first grade children (30 girls/30boys) participated in this study.Results: The developed test was found to have good content and face validity. The SeVAT showed an excellent test-retest reliability (ICC=0.778, p<0.001) and internal consistency (Cronbach's Alpha of original and parallel tests were 0.857 and 0.831, respectively). SeVAT and Stroop test demonstrated a positive correlation upon the convergent validity testing.Conclusion: Our results suggested an acceptable reliability and validity for the computer-based SeVAT in the assessment of SELECTIVE ATTENTION in children. Further research may warrant the differential validity of such a test in other age groups and neuro-cognitively disordered populations.