Abstract
Hybrid Foraging (HF) is a visual search task in which observers collect multiple instances of several different target types (e.g. selecting blue-square and purple-rounded Perler-beads to make a craft). Selective attention is a core executive function and recent studies have suggested that HF could be a useful way to study executive functions during development (Ólafsdóttir et al., 2019 & 2020). The goal of the present work is to see how HF is related to performance on the Continuous Performance Test (CPT), a common test in clinical neuropsychology to assess attention-related problems in children. We tested 51 typically developing children (26 aged 5-6 and 25 aged 11-12) using a video game-like hybrid foraging task involving search for well-known stuffed animals. All children also performed the K-CPT/CPT test (for the younger and the older groups, respectively). In the CPT children must respond to one target while withholding responses to distractors. For each observer, we correlated CPT scores with hybrid foraging results. Linear regressions showed that both response times (F(1, 49) = 8.42; p = . 006; r = .383) and correct responses (F(1, 49) = 6.93; p= .011; r= .352) were significantly correlated between the two tasks. We found weaker correlations for the omissions (F(1, 49) = 2.98; p = .091; r =.239), probably due to the very different nature of both tasks. While omissions in the CPT respond to the absence of response to the target, in the HF task they are targets not detected and left behind in the search. In general, observers who performed well on one task were likely to do well on the other. HF also provides measures of working memory or attentional shifting (see again Ólafsdóttir et al., 2019 & 2020) making it a promising and powerful task for assessing attention-related problems in development.