Prolonging the response movement inhibits the feed-forward motor program in the sustained attention to response task

Abstract

Despite widespread use in clinical and experimental contexts, debate continues over whether or not the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) successfully measures sustained attention. Altering physical aspects of the response movement required to SART stimuli may help identify whether performance is a better measure of perceptual decoupling, or response strategies and motor inhibition. Participants completed a SART where they had to manually move a mouse cursor to respond to stimuli, and another SART where this extra movement was not required, as in a typical SART. Additionally, stimuli were located at either a close or a far distance away. Commission errors were inversely related to distance in the manual movement condition, as the farther distance led to longer response times which gave participants more time to inhibit prepotent responses and thus prevent commission errors. Self-reported measures of mental demand and fatigue suggested there were no differences in mental demands between the manual and automatic condition; instead the differences were primarily in physical demands. No differences were found for task-unrelated thoughts between the manual and automatic condition. The movement effect combined with participants' subjective reports are evidence for time dependent action stopping, not greater cognitive engagement. These findings support a response strategy perspective as opposed to a perceptual decoupling perspective, and have implications for authors considering using the SART. Applied implications of this research are also discussed.

Response Complexity Reduces Errors on a Response Inhibition Task

“…Considering the SART-C and SART-S conditions collectively, modulating the response characteristics by increasing the response from a single-button to a multiple-button response facilitated a 9% error of commission rate and response latency of 807 ms. Conversely, the traditional SART, which uses a single-button response, produces a relatively higher error-rate range (29%-55%) with a faster response latency range of 325-421 ms Helton, 2009;Helton, Head, & Russell, 2011;Helton, Kern, & Walker, 2009;Manly et al, 2003). As similarly found in point-and-click SARTs Wilson et al, 2018), changing the motor-response characteristics decreases response inhibition errors as measured by errors of commission; however, the cost of improved accuracy was slower response times to Go stimuli.…”

“…These aforementioned factors are likely to be compounded if the Soldier is not actually physically present on the battlefield but tele-present. Recently, it has been proposed that an additional contributing factor to friendly fire is response inhibition failures, which may be compounded as a function of the faster target-engagement tempo in modern combat (Wilson et al, 2018; Wilson et al, 2013).…”

“…For example, modulating the task instructions of the SART (i.e., emphasis on slower response) significantly reduces errors of commission (Seli, Cheyne, & Smilek, 2012). In addition, changing the motor-response characteristics of the SART by incorporating a “mouse point-and-click” response has also shown promise of significantly reducing errors of commission at the expense of slower response latency (SATO; Head & Helton, 2013; Wilson et al, 2018). At the trial level, the point-and-click SART requires participants to physically move a mouse cursor that is surrounded on screen by four boxes presented at equal distances that could contain either a Go or No-Go stimulus.…”

Increased Cerebrovascular Reactivity In Selected Brain Regions After Extracranial-Intracranial Bypass Improves The Speed of Visual Cancellation In Patients With Severe Steno-Occlusive Disease: A Preliminary Study

“…In the many previous studies of the "speed-accuracy trade-off", inhibition of ongoing thought and action was focused when a mistake was noticed: if the stopping process wins, thought and action are inhibited (slow but more accurate); if the ongoing process wins, thought and action are executed (fast but less accurate) [15]. This inhibition mechanism has been thought to be related to the cortical-basal ganglia circuit; the basal ganglia output an inhibitory signal on the thalamus like a brake and control the speed and accuracy of some action initiated by cerebral cortical activity [16,22,26,27].…”

The Sustained Attention to Response Task Shows Lower Cingulo-Opercular and Frontoparietal Activity in People with Narcolepsy Type 1: An fMRI Study on the Neural Regulation of Attention

“…The task-positive motor activation most likely reflects a combination of motor action through button presses and its preparation and inhibition (when a 3 was presented). Previous research has shown that performance in motor-related vigilance tasks, such as the SART, depends on preparatory (motor) set [ 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 ]. In our study we observed significant task-positive activity in multiple motor regions that are considered to control the Bereitschaftspotential (readiness potential) as they continuously assess both the planning of potential motor responses and prevent false premature initiation by limiting activity in nonprimary motor cortical areas through the thalamus and basal ganglia [ 37 , 38 ].…”