Rey-Mermet, Alodie;
Singmann, Henrik;
Oberauer, Klaus;
(2025)
Neither measurement error nor speed-accuracy trade-offs explain the difficulty of
establishing attentional control as a psychometric construct:
Evidence from a latent-variable analysis using diffusion modeling.
Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
10.3758/s13423-025-02696-4.
(In press).
Preview |
Text
s13423-025-02696-4.pdf Download (5MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Attentional control refers to the ability to maintain and implement a goal and goal-relevant information when facing distraction. So far, previous research has failed to substantiate strong evidence for a psychometric construct of attentional control. This could result from two methodological shortcomings: (a) the neglect of individual differences in speed-accuracy trade-offs when only speed or accuracy is used as dependent variable, and (b) the difficulty of isolating attentional control from measurement error. To overcome both issues, we combined hierarchical-Bayesian Wiener diffusion modeling with structural equation modeling. We re-analyzed six datasets, which included data from three to eight attentional-control tasks, and data from young and older adults. Overall, the results showed that measures of attentional control failed to correlate with each other and failed to load on a latent variable. Therefore, limiting the impact of differences in speed-accuracy trade-offs and of measurement error does not solve the difficulty of establishing attentional control as a psychometric construct. These findings strengthen the case against a psychometric construct of attentional control.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Neither measurement error nor speed-accuracy trade-offs explain the difficulty of establishing attentional control as a psychometric construct: Evidence from a latent-variable analysis using diffusion modeling |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3758/s13423-025-02696-4 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-025-02696-4 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Experimental Psychology |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10207065 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
