Span of Attention across Stages of Intellectual Impairment: Does Affective Stimulation Matter?

doi:10.4236/psych.2013.44058

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Psychology

2013. Vol.4, No.4, 410-419

Published Online April 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/psych) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/psych.2013.44058

410

Span of Attention across Stages of Intellectual Impairment: Does

Affective Stimulation Matter?

Anwesha Chakrabarti, Mallika Banerjee

Department of Psychology, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India

Email: [email protected], [email protected]

Received January 30th, 2013; revised February 26th, 2013; accepted March 23rd, 2013

Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any

medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The present study explores how affectivity and abstraction value influences the span of attention of nor-

mal and retarded population. Five intellectual functioning groups were chosen, six in each (N = 30), from

both sexes, age of 11 - 23 (mean age 17.36) years from the urban hospitals and educational institutions.

For standardization of stimulus materials and controlling of extraneous variables three preliminary expe-

riments were done. A repeated measure experimental design was followed in the main study. Result

shows attention span tends to decrease with an increment in abstraction level in the lower range of intel-

lectual ladder. Affective loading in stimulus materials does not enhance the span of attention, per se it in-

hibits cognition. The result was interpreted in the light of behavioural observation during the experimental

conditions as well as the obtained statistical output. Overall analysis revealed that the persons with mod-

erate retardation scored better in attention span in comparison to mild retarded group where average group

scored highest. So, the result of span of attention did not follow the ladder of intellectual impairment. The

causal attribution on result was interpreted in terms of environmental distraction and the lack of basic

cognitive need of the moderately retarded persons which inversely facilitated better attention span as their

attention span remains unaffected by distraction. The result is helpful to design the learning materials for

the specific intellectual group.

Keywords: Span of Attention; Intellectual Impairment; Concrete-Abstract Stimulus Dimension;

Cognitive-Affective Stimulus Dimension

Introduction

Intelligence, as a subjective factor of cognitive functioning,

must play an important role in attention. Earlier studies in the

area of short term memory created somewhat confusing picture.

Some research suggested that the performance of children with

mental retardation was no different from that of non-disabled

individuals. Many methodological limitations with this early

memory research made interpretation very difficult (Drew et al.,

1996). Some other group of studies has mentioned that mental

retardation is characterized by low attentional capacity. Luria

(1963) has mentioned that the defective orienting reaction of

the retarded, which prevents efficient attention to novel stimuli,

is responsible for their learning failures.

The early test developers assumed that there is a positive

correlation between intelligence and the ability to maintain at-

tention to a task (Crosby et al., 1968). Zeaman et al. (1963)

have postulated that a low initial probability of attending to re-

levant dimensions of a stimulus display is responsible for im-

pairment shown by retarded individuals in visual discrimina-

tion learning. But Crosby noted that the studies done by Zea-

man have been limited to visual learning to moderately retarded

children. Denny (1964, 1966) also attributed the impairment

which persons with retardation show in learning to an attention

deficit problem. A number of authors in past literature explain

the short attention span of retarded individuals in a number of

ways. Hutt and Gibby (1965) opined that attention deficit in

retarded individuals is a result of persistent anxiety, where as

Zigler (1966) has suggested that distractibility or outer direct-

edness is the key factor for poor attention in this group. So, the

past literature has noted that persons having mental retardation

are characterized by low attention span, but there is poor litera-

ture which states how it is related to the progressive degree of

impairment. One of the prime aims of the present study is to

uncover how the different intellectual functioning levels re-

spond in span of attention task.

As the early literature has suggested attention gets affected

by the complex interplay among a number of subjective and

objective factors. Nature of stimulus quality has been proved to

be a significant determinant for attention. This nature of stimu-

lus quality may be varied in a number of ways. For example,

stimulus sets can be varied in terms of living or non-living ob-

jects, or human figures and animal figures. In the present study

the nature of stimulus has been varied from two different per-

spectives: one is changing the abstraction level and other is

changing the affective value in stimulus category.

Processing of concrete and abstract ideas was a keenly inves-

tigated area from 1970s with the emergence of dual coding

hypothesis (Paivio, 1971). When concrete and abstract words

are given, concrete words are better recalled, and in comparison

to words pictures are reproduced easily (Schwanenflugel & Stowe,

1989; Paivio, 1971, 1986; Richardson, 2003). Hinojosa et al.

A. CHAKRABARTI, M. BANERJEE

(2001) showed that Recognition Potential (RP) of concrete and

abstract words that actually differ in their degree of imageabil-

ity (ability to form image) and semantic processing areas in

which the RP originates display a higher activation for concrete

(more imageable) material compared with abstract words and

pseudo words. In terms of concreteness effects in verbal mem-

ory, performance measure typically indicates that concrete

words are easier than abstract words (Howe & Hunter, 1985).

Concreteness has been shown to influence the recall pattern of

both young and old adults, although it is not always clear whe-

ther the magnitude of this effect is developmentally invariant

(Craik et al.). This concrete-abstract stimulus processing is a

very much relevant issue in intellectual deficiency. It hampers

in their conceptualization of ideas as well as making relations

between two or more concepts. Concrete materials are easier to

process they are more sensual where as abstract stimuli are

more conceptual, having less physical referents. Concretizing

the stimulus material it may help them in learning and under-

standing the external world. The present study intends to see

how concretization influences perception in intellectually im-

paired group.

Literature suggests there emotion plays a great role in regula-

tion of attention. It serves an environmental cue to prioritize

cognition (Lazzarus, 1991; Simon, 1967). According to Dolan

(2002), one of the emerging fields of psychological research is

to know how emotion interacts with and influences other do-

mains of cognition, memory and reasoning. Waring (2010)

noted that many earlier studies demonstrated that emotionally

charged items are more likely to attract attention than are emo-

tionally neutral stimulus. Evidence from a variety of sources

shows when both emotional and neutral items complete for pro-

cessing resources; emotion is able to bias the competition (Desi-

more et al., 1995). According to Anderson (2005) emotion modu-

lates the attentional blink and impairs concurrent task perform-

ance in divided attention paradigms (Talmi et al., 2007) and

slows down font-colour naming in the Stroop task (Hadley et

al., 2006). Anthony (2004) viewed the role of affection on at-

tention from a phenomenological perspective and described

how several level of affective force are related to mode of at-

tentiveness. According to cognitive tuning model positive affect

promotes cognition as it generates relational, heuristic and in-

tuitive processing style. In contrast negative affect inhibits cog-

nition by giving rise item specific, systematic or reflective pro-

cessing (Strack & Duetch, 2004).

Although the role of affection on cognition is well researched

area, but how it is further connected to intellectual impairment

is a rarely studied area. The present experiment aims at finding

out how different levels of intellectual impairment perform in

attentive task when the stimulus has affective loading. So, an-

other way of varying the nature of stimulus, in this study, is to

vary the affective value within stimulus category. In this study

“Affective value” is defined as the amount of emotive compo-

nents embedded in a particular form of stimulus. When feelings

and emotions are attached with stimulus category it is termed as

affectively loaded stimulus and the stimulus without the desired

level of emotive value is termed as cognitively loaded stimulus.

Following Darwinian Theory of natural selection, it may be

said that emotion accompanies an aroused physiological state

which gives rise to express the felt emotion by bodily gestures,

facial expressions along with different verbal and nonverbal

cues. Expression of emotions has survival value (Darwin, 1872)

that serves a particular form of communication between ones

inner subjective state with the outside objective world.

Goleman’s (1995) theory of emotional intelligence showed

the importance of understanding other’s emotions in social and

interpersonal context. As a number of social skills it is another

deficit area for persons with mental retardation. The emotion-

specificity hypothesis states that mental retardation is associ-

ated with deficits in decoding facially expressed emotions that

cannot be fully accounted for by mental age (Rojahn et al.,

1995). However not a sufficient number of research was found

to reveal this area much clearly. The present study intends to

see the impact of affective value on attention task in different

intelligence level.

In the present study, attempt has been made to study the cog-

nitive ability (through attention span), of the individuals having

below average IQ score, in cognitive and affective loaded stim-

uli by varying levels of abstraction of the same stimulus. Among

these two categories of stimuli, both of the stimulus categories

requires cognitive processing, but the affective stimuli consists

significantly higher affective value and thus labeled as so. It is

to be explored by this study to find out with a given level of im-

pairment, how much abstraction level could be afforded in cog-

nitive and affective dimension.

So, the objectives of the present study are to see whether 1)

Span of attention differs across various levels of intellectual

functioning; 2) Span of attention differs with the variation of

levels of abstraction; 3) Span of attention differs with the affec-

tive quality of stimulus.

Method

Participants

Thirty (six in each group) 11 - 23 years (mean 17.5 years)

old individuals having different range of intellectual function-

ing are taken from various special educational institutions and

hospitals. They have been categorized according to their intel-

lectual status as measured by Binet Kamat Intelligence Test in

the following groups: Average (IQ range 90 - 110), Dull normal

(IQ range 80 - 89), Border line (IQ range 70 - 79), Mildly re-

tarded (IQ range 50 - 69), and Moderately retarded (IQ range

35 - 49). Only individuals having the mother tongue of either

Hindi or Bengali and having the ability to read words either in

Bengali or in English were taken for the study. All the indi-

viduals had the history of schooling for at least two years. Indi-

viduals having any associated disability except mental retarda-

tion and having any history of major psychological illness were

excluded from the study.

Materials and Design

For the main study six stimulus cards were used; three for

cognitive dimension and three for affective dimension varying

the levels of abstraction in each category. They have been la-

beled as cognitively loaded and affectively loaded stimulus ca-

tegory respectively (Figure 1).

Stimulus Card Description

In each condition, 8 stimuli were presented simultaneously

against a background of 24 × 15 inch white chart paper. The

inter-stimulus distance was kept constant by placing all the stim-

uli equidistantly. The relative positions of each 8 stimuli (for

each cognitive and affective dimension) were kept constant.

A. CHAKRABARTI, M. BANERJEE

412

Clay or plastic

models

Colored

photographs Words

IV 2

Cognitively

loaded

Fruit models

made up with

clay or plastic

Photographs of

fruit models

used in card 1

Names (words)

of fruits used in

card 1

Card 1 Card 2

IV 1

(Levels of abstraction)

Concrete Abstract

Semi abstract

Card 3

Dolls having

emotional

expression

Photographs of

dolls used in

card 4

Names of

emotions used

in card 4

Affectively

loaded

Card 6 Card 4 Card 5

Figure 1.

Description of six cards used.

For the purpose of maximizing experimental control, 3 pre-

liminary studies have been done regarding categorization of

cognitive and affective loaded stimulus category, standardiza-

tion of emotional stimulus, checking the possible order effect.

Preliminary Study 1

What should be called an emotional stimulus? Can anything

be termed as a neutral stimulus? Any stimulus has its existence

in its perceiver’s experience. Despite of all the objectivity per-

ception is to some extent subjective. Thus emotionality within

the stimulus material can only be evaluated by the perceivers.

The terms “emotional stimulus” can appropriately exist when

the stimulus arise the feeling of emotion in a generalized popu-

lation. A “non emotional” or “neutral stimulus” is when despite

of its subjective association with personal emotion a large po-

pulation of observers interpret it as “not having emotional tone

within the stimulus” or “emotion is not induced within the

stimulus”. Hence, the objective of conducting this pilot study

was categorization of all the stimuli according to the affectivity

associated with the stimulus so that the terms like “cognitively

loaded” and “affectively loaded” stimulus category can safely

be used. Here, the aim was to determine quantitatively how much

emotional value is embedded in each of the stimulus categories.

On the basis of this result it is to be seen whether we can label

the two sets of stimuli as “cognitively loaded” and “affectively

loaded” stimulus category or not.

Method

Participants

15 subjects of 17 - 30 years age range, both male and female,

were having normal intellectual capacity without any record of

psychological disorder.

Procedure

Each of the 16 stimulus items (8 fruit models and 8 dolls)

were presented randomly one by one. Subjects were asked to

see them carefully and judge how much emotional state is re-

vealed by the object. The subjects were further cautioned not to

judge the objects by their personal feeling attached with them,

rather to judge how much emotional value is there in the object,

whatever the particular emotion is. Whatever the emotion they

felt they were asked to judge the objects in 0 - 5 point rating

scale and to rate the potential emotionality embedded in the

objects, where 0 means no emotionality is embedded, and 5

means maximum emotionality is embedded and 1 - 4 points

were to be assigned in the scale for gradually increasing the

degree of emotional values in an equal interval.

↓...............↓................. ↓...... ...... .....↓.... ...... ...... .↓........ ...... ..↓

0 1 2 3 4 5

-----------------------------------------→

Gradually increasing in equal interval

0: No emotional state is revealed.

5: Maximum emotionality is revealed.

Result and Discussion

All the fruit models together received 7% emotional value as

judged by 15 subjects, whereas, the dolls having different emo-

tional expressions received 81.4% emotional value. The maxi-

mum emotional value of 12% was received by the fruit “man-

A. CHAKRABARTI, M. BANERJEE

go” among all the fruits and a minimum value of 69.4% was re-

ceived by the doll labeled as “relaxed” among all the dolls.

So, it may be said that the dolls models can be labeled as

“affectively loaded” stimulus category because it got signifi-

cantly much high emotional value than that of the fruits models.

Even, the maximum emotional value of fruits got 12% which is

significantly lower than the minimum emotional value (69.4%)

received by dolls in one item.

Conclusion

On the basis of the above-mentioned judgment given by 15

subjects, it may be concluded that the fruits models can be la-

beled as “cognitively loaded stimulus” and the dolls having

different facial features can be labeled as “affectively loaded”

stimulus category having the consideration that cognition and

affection are present in all perception, but in varying degree.

Preliminary Study 2

Standardization of Emotional Stimulus

Perception and recognition of emotion through facial and ge-

stural expression was one of the main topics of investigation for

many years to the researchers. Emotion by its character is being

expressed through bodily gestures especially through face. This

process has great adaptive value because of the fact that the

generated emotion needs to be communicated to other members

of society. Perceivers play a great role in this process to under-

stand the expressed emotion. Recognition and understanding of

the perceived emotion is not as simple as it seems to. Some-

times it involves a very much complicated process. Some other

times subtlety within itself makes the process of understanding

a little difficult. The concept of “mixed emotion” also makes it

very much complicated. In spite of all the subjectivity recogni-

tion of expressed emotion has requires high objectivity in per-

ception. Here, objectivity in this process means to label a same

emotion by a wide group of perceivers. Here, the objective of

the present study is to label each doll (used in the main study)

by a particular emotional state by some groups of individual.

Participants

Depending on the final population (individuals with intellec-

tual impairment) and the nature of stimulus materials (dolls

having emotional expression) three groups of participants were

chosen for the standardization of the expressed emotions. Ten

children (of age-range 5 - 12 years), eleven psychologists and

thirty one students of psychology were taken for this study.

As the main study is to be done among the intellectually im-

paired groups (marked by low mental age), the perception of

emotion by another group having low mental age (due to chro-

nological age) has been taken. So, the judgment regarding the

expressed emotion by the children group was important and

also got maximum priority while summarizing the data.

Judgments of psychologists about the expressed emotions re-

vealed by the stimulus set were important, because by profes-

sion psychologists deal with peoples’ emotion, perceptions, and

expressions etc. So they are master in the task of interpreting

others’ facial expressions objectively.

Students of psychology were taken because of the fact that

they are being trained to read others’ emotions. So their judg-

ments were important.

Materials

Only the 8 concrete models of dolls (prepared for the main

study) were being used here for each subject.

Procedure

The eight doll figures were presented randomly one by one to

all the three groups of subjects. Each individual was instructed

to observe the doll figure very keenly and to label the expressed

emotion by his own judgment and language. Here the opinion

was open ended. The subjects were free to give any kind of

answer coming in his/her mind. After collecting the data for

each doll they were grouped or clustered in few categories. The

answers which were semantically similar were regarded as

same. For each doll the frequency of each answer was counted.

The maximally agreed upon answer was finally taken to coin

the doll with the particular emotion.

Result and Discussion

While summarizing the data, the synonymous words have

been treated as the same. In this process, the mode values were

calculated and used for the labeling of emotion (Table 1). So, a

range of opinion has been considered as correct and same for a

particular emotional expression. This method has been followed

according to Izard’s Differential Emotion Theory (1971). Fol-

lowing are the percentage of agreement in any emotion by all

the groups.

Preliminary Study 3

Checking the Possible O r d er Effect

In a repeated measure design each individual is receiving a

number of treatment conditions or levels of independent vari-

ables. As the different treatment levels are assigned to each

individual there may be an order effect which contaminates the

experimental findings. In order to eliminate the order effect

statistically Latin square Design is used to compute ANOVA

on small groups prior to the main study. So the aim is to see

whether there is any order effect of stimulus card presentation.

Table 1.

Percentage of agreement of the most popular response.

Names of

emotions Children Psychologists

Psychology

students

Joyous 100% 100% 96%

Surprised 80% 100% 96%

Relaxed 70% 54% 58%

Unhappy 60% 72% 77%

Angry 60% 54% 54%

Shocked 60% 40% 51%

Naughty 100% 54% 51%

Sad 100% 100% 98%

Note: The percentage of frequency of response of each affectively loaded stimu-

lus (dolls) used for labeling with the most popular response (N = 52).

A. CHAKRABARTI, M. BANERJEE

Participants

Two intellectually impaired groups (mildly retarded intellec-

tual functioning and border line intellectual functioning) were

taken having 3 individuals in each group. The characteristics of

this sample involve all the characteristics of the sample for the

main study.

Materials

All the stimulus cards made for the main study are used here.

Procedure

Each card was presented for 30 seconds audio visually (as it

is planned for the main study). A Latin square design was used

to test the order effect due to stimulus presentation for both of

the groups. The order of presentation of the same materials to

different subjects, thus, has been distributed so that it cannot

hamper the result.

Result

The data were calculated by Latin square ANOVA. The com-

putation of Latin square design accounts the row and column

variances also with the treatment effect. In the present pilot

study as it is the prime aim to find out the order effect due to

stimulus card presentation only the computation for the row

variance was done. All the obtained F values were found to be

not significant at .05 level (Table 2) which indicates for the two

small groups the order effect, which is not treatment but affects

the result, was not significant for order of stimulus cards pres-

entation.

Conclusion

From the above study it may be concluded that the order ef-

fect is not significant here. Thus for the main study the order

effect has not been considered.

Procedure of the Main Study

Stimulus Presentation

Based on the preliminary studies done prior to the experi-

ment stimulus cards were presented. Each stimulus was pre-

sented audiovisually. But while visually all the stimuli were

presented simultaneously, auditory labeling were made one by

one. The visual part contained the independent variable and

thus varied across conditions, while the auditory part remained

the same for each stimulus in affective and cognitive dimen-

sion.

The auditory presentation was used as a controlling tech-

nique for a number of extraneous factors. Firstly, to overcome

Table 2.

F values for row variance (order of presentation) in two groups.

Card Subjects mild Borderline

Cognitive 6.97 7.74

Affective 1.61 1.02

Note: F values of row variance of possible order effect in a Latin square design in

two intellectual functioning groups (N = 3 in each) in both cognitive and affec-

tively loaded stimulus categories.

the subjectivity in perception of the stimulus materials (both in

case of fruits and emotions), verbal labeling was used. Sec-

ondly, to reduce the subjectivity in processing speed, audio-

visual presentation was used. Thirdly, In other words to in-

crease inter-subjectivity, verbal suggestion was used. Lastly,

attempt has been made to draw attention by involving the sub-

ject’s both sense organs (visual and auditory) towards a given

stimulus in a given time.

Sequence of Stimulus Car d P r e s e nt a t ion

The abstract materials were presented at first which has the

lesser probability to carry over imageries. In each condition cog-

nitively loaded stimulus category is presented at first, fol-

lowed by the affectively loaded stimulus category. It is because

the fruits models are more familiar and easy to process for

them.

The difficulty level in cognitively loaded stimulus category

was low in the sense they are more concrete and easy to image

than emotions. The less difficult and more familiar materials

were presented at first to make the subject more comfortable

and easy with the experimental conditions.

Each stimulus card was shown for 30 - 35 seconds and it was

read out twice. The inter condition gap was kept 1 hour in be-

tween abstract, semiabstract and concrete level. Within this 1

hour the subjects were gone for different cognitive activities

studying in class, or performing some kind of academic task.

Within each condition (abstract, semiabstract and concrete)

two set of stimulus categories (cognitively loaded and affec-

tively loaded) were presented. The gap between these two lev-

els was 2 minutes. Usually all the experimental conditions were

completed within a day.

Data Collection

For taking the attention span 30 individuals of different in-

tellectual status were taken. The DV measure (recall) was taken

immediately after the presentation of stimulus card. The sub-

jects’ were encouraged to recall maximally. Verbal support

(feedback) was required for some people to make him or her

easier with the experimental set up and overcome their shyness

(if any). Some forms of these verbal feedback are “yes, right,

and? What else? Say. You have said very well.” Maximum

effort has been given, form the part of the experimenter to elicit

the total response from the subject. No time limit was main-

tained strictly. But after a given amount of response from the

subject, about 2 minutes pause was tolerated to give him or her

chance to make any more response. It was ensured that the

subject does not remember anything else. Subjects’ responses

were noted down and behavioural observations were made.

Scoring

Scoring was done taking into account the disability of the

subjects. For this reason a relative lenient stance was taken to

score the responses. If the subject gives the right name of the

fruits and emotions, it is considered correct (in any language

among Hindi, English and Bengali).If the subject gives wrong

answer, i.e., the names of other fruits not used here, further

probing is made to ensure the subject’s imagery regarding the

given fruit (that s/he has said) was not there in the stimulus card.

If it matches with an existing one, the answer is considered as

correct. If the subject gives wrong answer, but cannot describe

414

A. CHAKRABARTI, M. BANERJEE

it in any way which matches with the existing stimuli, the an-

swer is considered as wrong and therefore gets no mark. Same

rule was applicable for all emotional stimuli also.

Result

The data obtained from the different groups of subjects were

arranged properly with respect to each of the variables consid-

ered in the present study.

The data were then analyzed statistically in accordance with

the objectives of the present study. At first, the means and stan-

dard deviations of the groups on the scores of different vari-

ables are computed (Table 3). Their intergroup and intra group

comparisons were attainted with independent and repeated mea-

sures used in suitable nonparametric statistical tests.

Intergroup Comparisons

For the purpose of the analysis of data, intergroup compare-

sons were made with respect to cognitively loaded and affec-

tively loaded stimuli separately. Here, for testing the signifi-

cance of differences among the five groups classified on the

basis of the levels of intellectual functioning, the nonparametric

statistical test, that is Kruskal-Wallis One-Way Analysis of Va-

riarce by Ranks was used (Siegel & Castellan, 1988).

This test was applied separately for comparing the groups in

respect of each of the three levels of abstraction, namely con-

crete (CC), semiabstract (SA) and abstract (ABS). These group

comparisons were attainted separately with each of the stimulus

category namely, cognitively loaded and affectively loaded.

The statistical vales of Kruskal-Wallis test were designated as

KW values (Table 4).

Intragroup Comparisons

This part of the analysis was based on repeated measures ob-

tained from three levels of abstraction by the same subjects

belonging to a particular group. For the purpose of intra group

comparisons among the three levels of abstraction the non-

parametric statistical test that is the Friedman Two-Way Ana-

lysis of Variance by Ranks was used. This test was used for the

significance of differences among the three levels of abstraction

separately in each of the five groups. The value obtained from

the Friedman test was designated as Fr (Table 5).

Multiple Comparisons

The present multiple comparisons follows a procedure which

is considered to be an extension of the Friedman Two-Way

Analysis of Variance by Ranks. This procedure is based on

critical Z values for particular number of multiple comparisons.

The present analysis involved 3 multiple comparisons and ac-

cordingly the Z value was determined. Then the critical value

was worked out taking the Z value in to account and following

the procedure as stated in the extended Friedman test. The sig-

nificance of difference between any two levels of abstraction

was checked against the obtained critical value (Siegel & Cas-

tellan, 1988).

It might be stated here that, multiple comparisons between

the groups would be attainted only when the value of Fr indi-

cating a significant difference among the 3 levels of abstraction

for a particular group. The obtained results showed that the Fr

Table 3.

Mean and SD of span of attention score of five groups.

M SD

Int. Grp Levels of abstraction

Cog. Aff. Cog. Aff.

Concrete 7.5000 7.3333 .83666 1.21106

Semiabstract 7.3333 7.0000 .81650 1.26491

Average

Abstract 6.5000 5.6667 1.76068 1.63299

Concrete 7.0000 5.5000 .63246 1.37840

Semiabstract 6.8333 5.0000 .75277 1.26491

Dull normal

Abstract 5.6667 4.3333 1.50555 1.50555

Concrete 6.5000 5.8333 1.51658 1.16905

Semiabstract 5.8333 5.5000 1.47196 1.64317

Border line

Abstract 5.0000 4.5000 1.67332 1.37840

Concrete 5.5000 4.1667 .83666 .75277

Semiabstract 4.8333 3.5000 .75277 .83666

Mildly retarded

Abstract 4.1667 2.3333 .98319 1.36626

Concrete 5.8333 5.8333 1.16905 .75277

Semiabstract 5.5000 5.5000 1.22474 .89443

Moderately retarded

Abstract 4.6667 4.6667 .81650 1.26491

Note: The result shows the mean and standard deviation values of span of attention for five intellectual functioning groups (N = 30) in both cognitively loaded and affec-

tively loaded stimulus categories in each of the three levels of abstraction. Aff. = Affectively loaded category; Cog. = Cognitively loaded category; Int. Grp. = Intellectual

functioning group.

A. CHAKRABARTI, M. BANERJEE

Table 4.

KW values among the five groups in each of the three levels of abstrac-

tion.

Cognitively loaded

stimulus category

Affectively loaded

stimulus category

Concrete 7.096 15.067**

Semiabstract 14.263** 11.222*

Abstract 12.071* 14.417**

Note: Kruskal Wallis values for the significance of difference among the five

groups (N = 30) in each of the three levels of abstraction in both the cognitively

loaded and affectively loaded category. *p < .05; **p < .01.

Table 5.

Fr values among the three levels of abstraction in each of the five

groups.

Intellectual

functioning group

Cognitively loaded

stimulus category

Affectively loaded

stimulus category

Moderately retarded 4.765 9.000*

Mildly retarded 10.000** 4.900

Borderline 10.300** .597

Dull normal 4.849 5.158

Average 5.600 3.265

Note: Freidman values significance of mean difference among three levels of

abstraction in each of the five intellectual functioning group (N = 30) in both

cognitively loaded and affectively loaded stimulus category. *p < .05; **p < .01.

values were significant in border line and mildly retarded intel-

lectual functioning group. The obtained Fr values were not

found to be significant in case of moderately retarded, dull nor-

mal and average intellectual functioning group of the cogni-

tively loaded stimulus category. For this, the present multiple

comparisons were attainted with respect to mildly retarded

(Group 2) and borderline intellectual functioning (Group 3) for

cognitively loaded stimulus category (Table 6) and it is at-

tained to moderately retarded group (Group 1) for affectively

loaded stimulus category (Table 7).

Comparisons between Cognitively and Affectively Loaded

Stimuli

An attempt was made in the present study to test the signifi-

cance of difference between cognitively and affectively loaded

stimulus categories with respect to certain variables. This com-

parison was based on repeated measures since the same sub-

jects belonging to a particular group were exposed to both ca-

tegories of stimulus. For the purpose of comparison between

these two stimulus categories the nonparametric statistical test

that is The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test was used (Siegel &

Castellan, 1988).

The statistic to be obtained from the Wilcoxon test was des-

ignated as T+. The differences between the two stimuli catego-

ries were tested in each level of abstraction for the different

groups separately (Table 8).The obtained results are given in

the following tables.

Table 6.

Post hoc analysis between levels of abstraction for cognitively loaded

stimulus category.

Group Mildly retarded

Borderline intellectual

functioning

Levels of

abstraction

ABS &

SA &

ABS &

SA &

Average ranks1.17 &

2.00

2.83 &

1.17

2.00 &

2.83

1.08 &

2.17

1.08 &

2.75

2.17 &

2.75

Critical values1.391.39 1.39 1.39 1.39 1.39

Differences of

average ranks.83 1.66** .83 1.09 1.67** .58

Note: Post hoc analysis showing the mean difference between pairs of abstraction

levels in both mildly retarded (N = 6) and borderline intellectual functioning (N =

6) groups. ABS = Abstract Level; SA = Semiabstract Level; CC = Concrete Level.

*p < .05; **p < .01.

Table 7.

Post hoc analysis among levels of abstraction for affectively loaded sti-

mulus category.

Group Moderately retarded

Levels of abstractionABS & SA ABS & CC SA & CC

Average ranks 1.25 & 2.00 1.25 & 2.75 2.00 & 2.75

Critical values 1.39 1.39 1.39

Differences of

average ranks .75 1.50* .75

Note: Post hoc analysis showing the mean difference between pairs of abstraction

levels in moderately retarded group (N = 6). ABS = Abstract Level; SA = Semi-

abstract Level; CC = Concrete Level. *p < .05; **p < .01.

Table 8.

T+ values between cognitively loaded and affectively loaded stimulus

categories in each of the three levels of abstraction.

Intellectual

functioning groupAbstract Semiabstract Concrete

Moderately

retarded 12.00 8.00 1.5

Mildly retarded 15.00** 15.00** 15.00**

Borderline 3.00 3.00 16.00**

Dull normal 15.00** 21.00** 15.00**

Average 8.00 4.50 2.00

Note: Values of Willcoxon signed rank test shows the significance of mean dif-

ference between cognitively loaded and affectively loaded conditions in each le-

vel of abstraction for each intellectual functioning group (N =30). **p < .01.

Discussion

Among the different groups in all levels of abstractions of

both cognitively loaded (Figure 2) and affectively loaded sti-

mulus categories (Figure 3), the highest score is achieved by

average intellectual functioning group, followed by dull normal,

borderline, moderately retarded and mildly retarded intellectu-

ally functioning groups. Starting from mild intellectual func-

tioning, as the intellectual status increases, the span of attention

also increases gradually.

416

A. CHAKRABARTI, M. BANERJEE

Figure 2.

Mean of attention span among the five intelligence groups in three

abstraction levels in cognitively loaded stimulus category.

Figure 3.

Mean of attention span among the five intelligence groups in three ab-

straction levels in cognitively loaded stimulus category.

Here the striking result is the moderately retarded group per-

forms better than mildly retarded intellectual functioning group

in case of measuring attention span.

By the behavioural observation from the part of the expe-

rimenter, it can be interpreted as the rote memory, which does

not demand semantic understanding, works well in moderately

retarded level of intellectual functioning and there was lesser

degree of distraction by the environmental stimuli in them, as

the interest to explore environment is less in moderately retar-

ded intellectual functioning. This is so because the demand to

discover the surroundings is not developed in this group. The

semantic network is not properly formed. So higher level cog-

nitive tasking is not met by them, only the rote memory is acti-

vated and along with it lesser level of distraction made the at-

tention span better than mildly retarded intellectual functioning.

This study was not intended to measure long term memory.

Other past literatures have noted that the inefficient rehearsal

strategies that interfere with long term memory (Brooks & Mc-

Cauley, 1984) and inability to transfer learned materials results

in deficits in learning and cognitive systems in mental retarda-

tion. The earlier researches in the area of short term memory

drew a somewhat confusing picture. Some research suggested

that the performance of children with mental retardation was no

different from that of non disabled individuals. Many metho-

dological limitations with this early memory research made in-

terpretation very difficult (Drew et al., 1996). The present study

has answered the question in a way that in moderately retarded

intellectual functioning, attention span or short term memory

span comes better than that of mildly retarded intellectual func-

tioning group for lower distraction and better rote memory from

the par. Here, with the relatively higher intellectual functioning

the need for exploring the environment is high. In mildly re-

tarded intellectual functioning group the attention span was so

less because they have developed the interest to know the sur-

rounding world. In spite of providing the same set of instruction

their behaviour and activity were interfered by distraction. The

behavioural observation says they were unable to focus their

attention. In higher intellectual functioning group the need to

know the environment is higher but cognitive capacity also de-

velops better. So, although they get distracted minimally by the

surroundings more efficient cognitive strategies prevent their

forgetting and facilitate recall of items that was previously at-

tended.

It is seen that for all the given groups of intellectual func-

tioning the mean of attention span is highest in concrete level,

intermediate in semiabstract level and least in abstract level

(Figures 2 and 3). So, more the stimulus is concrete, more is

the probability here to be attended well. This finding is consis-

tent with that of Craik & Massani (1969) who concluded with

the finding that concreteness has been shown to influence the

recall pattern of both young and old adults, although it is not

always clear whether the magnitude of this effect is develop-

mentally invariant. The differences among the means in all the

three levels of abstraction are significant at .05 level for some

groups (i.e. mildly retarded group and borderline intellectual

functioning group in case of cognitively loaded stimulus cate-

gory (Table 6) and moderately retarded intellectual functioning

group in case of affectively loaded stimulus category (Table 7).

Although with the increment in concretization level the atten-

tion span increases gradually, the difference between concrete

and abstract is consistently yielding better cognitive output and

is statistically significant. Statistical significance denotes the dif-

ference between concrete and abstract stimulus category much

high and statistically significant than that of between concrete

and semiabstract or between semiabstract and abstract stimulus.

So, if the abstract mode seems to be difficult in intellectually

impaired group then the instructor may go for concrete or se-

miabstract mode of instruction. If the concrete mode helps their

learning, then the next step is to go for the semiabstract mode

(as the difference between concrete and semiabstract level is

not statistically significant). After that instructor may move to

abstract set of learning material (as the difference between ab-

stract and semiabstract level is not statistically significant).

Thus semiabstract stimulus may be used as learning material

when the person has difficulty in acquiring abstract form of

stimulus in intellectually impaired group. Also as the transi-

tion between concrete and abstract is much harder, so a semiab-

stract level may often be introduced in between the two extreme

to smooth the ladder of transition. The result also shows that

this mean difference among the levels of abstraction is only

significant in groups having intellectual impairment but not in

average or dull normal intellectual functioning group in the

given level of difficulty. It means that the extent to which the

difference in abstraction level in stimulus sensitizes the cogni-

tion of persons having intellectual difficulty, it does not do so

for the two higher intellectual groups for the given difficulty

level. Thus concrete and semi abstract levels of stimulus or

learning materials may facilitate learning and cognition.

Comparing between the cognitively loaded and affectively

loaded stimulus category, it is seen that in all abstraction level

the former yields greater attention span although it is statisti-

cally significant at .05 level in the middle range of the contin-

uum of intellectual functioning. This result is consistent in con-

crete (Figure 4), semiabstract (Figure 5) and abstract (Figure 6)

A. CHAKRABARTI, M. BANERJEE

Figure 4.

Mean of attention span of five different intelligence groups in cogni-

tively & affectively loaded stimuli in case of abstract stimuli.

Figure 5.

Mean of attention span of five different intelligence groups in cogni-

tively & affectively loaded stimuli in case of semiabstract stimuli.

Figure 6.

Mean of attention span of five different intelligence groups in cogni-

tively & affectively loaded stimuli in case of concrete stimuli.

stimulus category. The two extreme in this continuum is less

affected by the affective stimulation and this is because of pro-

bably two different reasons.

For average intellectual functioning group the difference is

not significant because the difficulty level in two different sti-

mulus categories was too easy for them and both have been

processed more or less similarly, although their performance is

slight better in cognitively loaded stimulus category. In average

intellectual functioning group this makes no statistically sig-

nificant difference because the average groups can overcome

the emotional clouding better by utilising different strategies by

a well formed executive functioning. According to Anderson

(2005) emotion modulates the attentional blink and impairs con-

current task performance in divided attention paradigms (Talmi

et al., 2007) and slows down font-colour naming in the stroop

task (Mackay et al., 2006). In this study the attention span is

interfered with the affection embedded in stimulus category.

For moderately retarded intellectual functioning group, it is

noted earlier also that the rote memory is unaffected by the

nature of stimulus. So, be it affective or cognitive, they proc-

essed more or less similarly for a brief period of time as the

semantic processing is weak in them.

But in the middle range of intellectual functioning the per-

formance is better in cognitive loaded stimulus category may be

because of the fact that the affective stimulation generates af-

fective processing and it interferes with the cognitive process-

ing which hinders cognitive performance or it is because of the

fact that the stimulus used in cognitive category is more famil-

iar to them. So, affective stimulation does not facilitate cogni-

tive performance. Many investigators have reported that people

with mental retardation have problem on emotion recognition

tasks (Moore et al., 2001). The present study corresponds with

this fact.

Overall analysis shows that the nature of stimulus contributes

much in cognitive functioning i.e. span of attention. Affective

component in stimulus material does not facilitate cognitive

processing, per se; it hinders the scores on attention span. Cog-

nitively loaded stimulus seemed to be beneficial for the scores

of attention span. The span of attention scores increase gradu-

ally as the intellectual status increases (from mild to average

intellectual functioning). Moderately retarded group performed

better than mildly retarded and for them the span of attention

score does not vary much with the variation in stimulus cate-

gory probably because of their problem in semantic processing

for the variation. For all the groups concrete stimuli yield better

attention span score but in case of intellectually impaired group

this concretization in stimulus material is significantly fruitful.

The result may be helpful to understand how the intellectual

ladder is affected by changing in stimulus category. Moreover,

the result gives an indication to design the study material for

specific group of intellectual functioning.

Conclusion

The present study shows how variation in nature of stimulus

affects the span of attention on various levels of intellectual

functioning. It arrives at the following conclusions: 1) Along

with the increment in levels of abstraction the attention span

tends to decrease in all level of intellectual functioning groups

ranging from moderately retarded intellectual functioning to

average intellectual functioning group; 2) Significant differ-

ences are seen in between concrete and abstract level in the

intellectually impaired groups, but no significant difference is

found in attention score between concrete and semiabstract or

between abstract and semiabstract; 3) Affective loading in

stimulus category does not enhance the span of attention, per se,

it inhibits the cognitive performance in all intellectual function-

ing groups; 4) The differences in performance in cognitive load-

ed and affective loaded stimulus categories are significant sta-

tistically in mild retardation, borderline and dull normal intel-

lectual functioning groups, i.e., the middle range of the contin-

uum; 5) The attention span of the moderately retarded intellec-

tual functioning group is not affected much by the nature of sti-

mulus category, probably because of better rote memory which

is unaffected by distraction. The results may help to design the

teaching tools and instruction mode for different intellectual

functioning groups, so that it can facilitate learning maximally.

The result is further helpful to see how the different intellectual

functioning groups react differently in same kind of stimulus

sets. So, while making the learning materials for specific groups,

418

A. CHAKRABARTI, M. BANERJEE

the present finding would be helpful. Furthermore, the result of

the following study may initiate a number of different resear-

ches in the area of rote memory and affective stimulation across

the different intellectual functioning groups.

Acknowledgements

AC thanks to Indian Council of Medical Research for the fi-

nancial assistance. Sri Debabrata Biswas for academic guidance.

Sri Sumon Mukherjee for valuable suggestion.

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