Estudio de las diferencias individuales en gastos atencionales, a partir de una tarea de papel y lápiz

Abstract

This work, that links the psychometric tradition to the information processing approach, studies whether performance differences observed in tests were or were not associated to individual differences in attention use. Four extreme groups of subjects were selected, according to two intelligence factors (verbal and spatial), and they performed a task of sentences verification (primary task), isolated or in conjuction with another task of perceptive coupling (secondary task). The dependent variables were the number of correct answers in the primary task (both conditions) and in the secondary one (limited time), and the number of mistakes in both tasks with no time limit. Subjects with high verbal punctuation had more success than the low verbal ones performing the primary task alone, and the same differences between high and low spatial subjects were found; differences in the number of mistakes were not observed. Performing both tasks concurrently, high verbal subjects get more correct answers and less mistakes than low verbal subjects in the primary task; high and low spatial subject differ only in the number of correct answers. These results are discussed and compared with recent differential studies.