Abstract

Various factors affect performance on cognitive tests that involve attention, including age and schooling. Sustained and selective attention of 459 Psychology, Basic Sciences and Engineering university students, 58.9% women, between 18 and 39 years old, all of them Spanish speakers, evaluated through their performance in different scores of the d2 test. An analysis of a multivariate model is applied to verify the relation among the variables age, sex, and career and their effect on the dependent scores: total number of responses (TR) and concentration index (CON) of the d2 test. The main effect of career are observed. Normative data of the d2 test are generated for university students with age ranges of 18-24 and 25-35 years. Age-standardized results for the d2 test are necessary to reliably assess Spanish-speakers people with higher education. The influence of the university degree on the normative data of cognitive tests is discussed.

Keywords: Sustained attention; selective attention; normative data; d2 Test