Exploring the Basic Mechanisms Underlying Sustained Attention, Attention Lapses and Mind Wandering

注意力疏忽和不必要的走神时刻会导致广泛的表现错误，包括幽默和令人尴尬的缺点，在课堂和工作中表现不佳，甚至是灾难性的机动车事故。然而，注意力疏忽和走神背后的基本认知机制仍然知之甚少。该研究计划的主要目的是考察防止和/或终止注意力疏忽的外部任务相关因素，以及与持续注意能力相关的内在个体特征。这项研究计划分为三条相互关联的调查路线，每条调查路线都是与我实验室的研究生和博士后研究人员合作产生和发展的。由于众所周知，注意力疏忽和走神是在个人不知情的情况下发生的，第一条调查路线将考察是什么因素让个人意识到他们的注意力已经分散，他们的注意力已经偏离了任务。一组研究将考察任务中自然出现的断点，如文本中的段落中断或电影和讲座中的转换点，是否会触发思维漂移的终止。另一组研究将评估与个人相关的词汇(例如，一个人的名字)、情绪激动的刺激(如禁忌词汇)，以及在其他乏味的任务中发生的关键事件，这些都被认为能吸引注意力，是否也会导致人们意识到他们的大脑已经走神了。这项工作将导致建立更完整的走神模型和更发达的走神事件终止机制，并将对预防和终止日常生活中的注意力疏忽具有明显的实践意义。第二条线的研究将揭示减少持续性注意力减退(SAD)的任务相关因素的类型，SAD是一般观察到的持续性注意力表现随着时间的推移而下降的观察结果。这些研究基于一个相对较新的假设，即SAD的发生是因为随着时间的推移，注意力资源从主要的警戒任务中分离出来，转而应用于内部思维(走神假设)。我们计划通过(与直觉相反的)增加警戒任务的外部需求来减少SAD，这应该会导致较少的走神和更持久的注意力与警戒刺激的耦合。我们将通过(1)增加一个将注意力与警戒刺激相结合的次要任务，(2)增加不频繁警戒目标的异质性，(3)减少目标预知，来增加警戒任务的脑力负荷。关键的是，表明增加脑力负荷会降低SAD，这将直接与注意力理论的一个普遍观点相矛盾，即增加任务的注意力需求应该会对表现产生负面影响。最后一项研究将解决与持续注意力表现相关的个人特质特征。具体地说，我们将探索那些习惯于媒体多任务处理(MMT，例如，一边工作一边听音乐)的人是否已经萎缩了内部控制机制，这将导致他们在持续的注意力任务中表现得更差。这些研究将测量MMT的个体差异，并将它们与(1)瞬间注意力缺失、(2)SAD的程度和(3)MMT耗尽注意力资源的程度的个体差异联系起来。这项工作将指出，习惯性MMT是持续注意能力的重要个体差异调节因素，需要将其纳入持续注意的认知模型。

Attention lapses and unwanted moments of mind wandering can lead to a wide range of performance errors including humorous and embarrassing foibles, poor performance in the classroom and at work, and even catastrophic motor vehicle accidents. Yet, the basic cognitive mechanisms underlying attention lapses and mind wandering remain poorly understood. The primary aim of the proposed research program is to examine the external task-related factors that prevent and/or terminate attention lapses and the internal individual traits associated with sustained-attention ability. The research program is divided into three interrelated lines of inquiry each generated and developed in collaboration with the graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in my laboratory.Since attention lapses and bouts of mind wandering are known to occur without an individual’s awareness, the first line of inquiry will examine what factors allow individuals to realize that their attention has lapsed and their mind has wandered off task. One set of studies will examine whether naturally occurring breakpoints in tasks, such as paragraph breaks in text or transition points in movies and lectures, can trigger the termination of mind wandering. Another set of studies will evaluate whether personally relevant words (e.g., one’s own name), emotionally charged stimuli (such as taboo words), and critical events in otherwise boring tasks, which are known to capture attention, will also lead people to realize their minds have wandered. This work will lead to the formulation of more complete models of mind wandering with more developed mechanisms for the termination of mind wandering episodes, and will have obvious practical implications for preventing and terminating attention lapses in everyday life.A second line of research will uncover the types of task-related factors that reduce the sustained attention decrement (SAD), which is the general observation that sustained attention performance declines over time. The studies are based on the relatively new hypothesis that the SAD occurs because over time attentional resources become decoupled from the primary vigilance task and are instead applied to internal thoughts (the mind wandering hypothesis). We plan to reduce the SAD by (counter-intuitively) increasing the external demands of a vigilance task, which should lead to less mind wandering and a more durable coupling of attention to vigilance stimuli. We will increase mental workload of the vigilance task by (1) adding a secondary task that couples attention to the vigilance stimuli, (2) increasing the heterogeneity of the infrequent vigilance targets, and (3) reducing target foreknowledge. Critically, showing that increasing mental workload decreases the SAD would directly contradict a widely held view of attention theories, namely, that increasing attentional demands of a task ought to have, if anything, negative consequences on performance.A final line of research will address the sorts of trait characteristics of individuals that relate to sustained attention performance. Specifically, we will explore whether individuals who are habitually involved in media multi-tasking (MMT e.g., listening to music while working) have atrophied internal control mechanisms that will lead them to perform more poorly on sustained attention tasks. The studies will measure individual differences in MMT and relate them to individual differences in (1) momentary attention lapses, (2) the magnitude of the SAD, and (3) the extent to which MMT depletes attentional resources. This line of work will point to habitual MMT as an important individual difference moderator of sustained attention ability, which will need to be incorporated in cognitive models of sustained attention.