Listening in Time, Space, and Frequency: Adaptation of the Attention Networks Test to the Auditory Modality

The popular Attention Networks Test (ANT) efficiently indexes the brain’s capacity for alerting, spatial orienting, and executive control. It has seen enthusiastic adoption in lifespan and clinical science, where its intuitiveness and brevity are vital. To date, no attempt to translate the ANT to the auditory modality has succeeded in measuring the Orienting Network. Building on recent work that validated our speech-based Directional Command Flanker Task, we present an auditory ANT that achieves this goal. Sixty-three healthy young adults (M = 19.5, SD = 1.5 years of age, 32 female) completed two versions of the task: an endogenous version in which spatial cues were presented in a central location (i.e., to both ears), and an exogenous version in which they were delivered to the to-be-attended ear. While both tasks indexed alerting and executive control, only the endogenous task successfully measured spatial orienting. Our results provide a path forwards for the assessment of attention in patients with visual impairments, and for more comprehensive study of the networks that subserve attention.