Subjective experience and the attentional lapse: Task engagement and disengagement during sustained attention

Smallwood, Jonathan; Davies, John B.; Heim, Derek; Finnigan, Frances; Sudberry, Megan V.; O’Connor, Rory C.; Obonsawin, Marc C.

doi:10.1016/j.concog.2004.06.003

Cited by 467 publications

(487 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…This has also been the case in other studies using global assessments of task-unrelated thoughts (Head & Helton, 2014). Researchers using more immediate thought probes have found an association between commission errors and reports of off-task thoughts (Smallwood et al, 2004), however, as McAvinue et al (2005 observed people are aware of their SART commission errors 99.1% of the time. If participants are probed immediately after a commission error in regards to whether they were task-focused or thinking about something else, their performance itself may influence their thought report (e.g., if a person makes an error and then is asked immediately what they were thinking about, they may conclude that because they made an error they must have been thinking about something other than the task).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 69%

Spider stimuli improve response inhibition

Wilson

Russell

Helton

2015

Consciousness and Cognition

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Anxiety can have positive effects on some aspects of cognition and negative effects on others. The current study investigated whether task-relevant anxiety could improve people's ability to withhold responses in a response inhibition task. Sixty-seven university students completed a modified and an unmodified version of the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART; Robertson et al., 1997) and provided subjective measures of arousal and thoughts. Anxiety appeared to improve participants' ability to withhold responses. Further, participants' performance was consistent with a motor response inhibition perspective rather than a mindwandering perspective of SART commission error performance. Errors of commission were associated with response times (speed-accuracy trade-off) as opposed to task-unrelated thoughts. Task-related thoughts were associated with the speed-accuracy trade-off. Conversely task-unrelated thoughts showed an association with errors of omission, suggesting this SART metric could be an indicator of sustained attention. Further investigation of the role of thoughts in the SART is warranted.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 69%

Spider stimuli improve response inhibition

Wilson

Russell

Helton

2015

Consciousness and Cognition

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“…For example, do individuals with higher rates differ from those with lower rates in task-unrelated or task-relevant thoughts (cf. Smallwood et al, 2004)? As the items in all our questionnaires sample routine activities a variety of settings and contexts, receiving a high score implies a rather general trait, which might be taken to suggest a high rate of task-unrelated thought rather than ruminations about the specifics of task performance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some evidence that the CFQ is correlated, inter alia, with attention-related errors comes from studies showing that the CFQ correlates with overt behavioral measures of attention (e.g., Robertson, Manly, Andrade, Baddeley, & Yiend, 1997;Tipper & Baylis, 1987). Nonetheless, although it is often employed as a measure of sustained attention (e.g., Robertson et al, 1997;Smallwood et al, 2004), it is clear that the CFQ measures proneness to more than just attention-related errors. Indeed, the items assessed by the CFQ were explicitly designed to be non-specific with regard to underlying cognitive processes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Absent-mindedness: Lapses of conscious awareness and everyday cognitive failures

Cheyne

Carriere

Smilek

2006

Consciousness and Cognition

372

303

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A brief self-report scale was developed to assess everyday performance failures arising directly or primarily from brief failures of sustained attention (attention-related cognitive errors-ARCES). The ARCES was found to be associated with a more direct measure of propensity to attention lapses (Mindful Attention Awareness Scale-MAAS) and to errors on an existing behavioral measure of sustained attention (Sustained Attention to Response Task-SART). Although the ARCES and MAAS were highly correlated, structural modelling revealed the ARCES was more directly related to SART errors and the MAAS to SART RTs, which have been hypothesized to directly reflect the lapses of attention that lead to SART errors. Thus, the MAAS and SART RTs appear to directly reflect attention lapses, whereas the ARCES and SART errors reflect the mistakes these lapses are thought to cause. Boredom proneness was also assessed by the BPS, as a separate consequence of a propensity to attention lapses. Although the ARCES was significantly associated with the BPS, this association was entirely accounted for by the MAAS, suggesting that performance errors and boredom are separate consequences of lapses in attention. A tendency to even extraordinarily brief attention lapses on the order of milliseconds may have far-reaching consequences not only for safe and efficient task performance but also for sustaining the motivation to persist in and enjoy these tasks.

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“…By collecting selfreports in an online fashion during scanning while keeping cognitive demands constant, and by examining differences in neural recruitment immediately before self-reports of being off versus on task, the present study was well positioned to overcome some of the limitations that have prevented previous research from drawing conclusive inferences about the role of the default network in mind wandering. To provide additional corroborative evidence for these self-reports, they were collected while participants performed a sustained attention to response task (SART) (12), during which performance errors have been linked to mind wandering (12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17). This procedure allowed us to assess the convergence in brain activations between behavioral and subjective indices of mind wandering.…”

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confidence: 99%

Experience sampling during fMRI reveals default network and executive system contributions to mind wandering

Christoff

Gordon

Smallwood

et al. 2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Although mind wandering occupies a large proportion of our waking life, its neural basis and relation to ongoing behavior remain controversial. We report an fMRI study that used experience sampling to provide an online measure of mind wandering during a concurrent task. Analyses focused on the interval of time immediately preceding experience sampling probes demonstrate activation of default network regions during mind wandering, a finding consistent with theoretical accounts of default network functions. Activation in medial prefrontal default network regions was observed both in association with subjective self-reports of mind wandering and an independent behavioral measure (performance errors on the concurrent task). In addition to default network activation, mind wandering was associated with executive network recruitment, a finding predicted by behavioral theories of off-task thought and its relation to executive resources. Finally, neural recruitment in both default and executive network regions was strongest when subjects were unaware of their own mind wandering, suggesting that mind wandering is most pronounced when it lacks meta-awareness. The observed parallel recruitment of executive and default network regions-two brain systems that so far have been assumed to work in oppositionsuggests that mind wandering may evoke a unique mental state that may allow otherwise opposing networks to work in cooperation. The ability of this study to reveal a number of crucial aspects of the neural recruitment associated with mind wandering underscores the value of combining subjective self-reports with online measures of brain function for advancing our understanding of the neurophenomenology of subjective experience.

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Subjective experience and the attentional lapse: Task engagement and disengagement during sustained attention

Cited by 467 publications

References 37 publications

Spider stimuli improve response inhibition

Spider stimuli improve response inhibition

Absent-mindedness: Lapses of conscious awareness and everyday cognitive failures

Experience sampling during fMRI reveals default network and executive system contributions to mind wandering

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