Time will tell: Sluggish Cognitive Tempo, attention and timing functioning in adults

The focus of this dissertation project is on Sluggish Cognitive Tempo (SCT), a clinical phenomenon that might be related to objective attentional and timing deficits. By studying it, we aim to learn more about attention and timing processes in human cognition in general. A literature review on previous studies on SCT showed that SCT is still understudied, and that a consensus on how to measure SCT is missing. In response to this, we conducted a validation study of previously used SCT items, in non-clinical adults. The thereby obtained SCT scale and subscales were further tested for their likely associations with self-rated attentional and timing functioning, in order to provide evidence for the construct validity of SCT. It was shown that our newly constructed measure of SCT was associated with self-rated everyday attentional and timing functioning. In the final study, both clinical- and non-clinical adults completed the newly validated SCT scale and were also tested with a well validated computerized neurocognitive test battery. Contrary to expectation, we did not find convincing evidence for a relation between SCT scores and cognitive functioning. The fact that SCT symptoms related to self-rated attentional deficits and self-rated deficits in everyday timing behavior but not to objective cognitive performance lets us assume that SCT might solely show its effects on higher order (reflective) processes and not so much on basic cognitive processes.