Understanding the Basic Mechanisms of Attentional Engagement and Disengagement

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When attention becomes disengaged from a given task, performance can be impaired, sometimes with catastrophic consequences. When attention is fully engaged, however, people can experience moments of deep and effortless concentration and a high level of performance. The proposed work includes three lines of research designed to explore the cognitive mechanisms underlying a variety of states along the spectrum of attentional engagement and disengagement. The first line of research will examine the basic mechanisms underlying mind wandering (MW), which is defined as the shifting of attention from a primary task to unrelated thoughts. In contrast to the common view in the literature that episodes of MW reflect unwanted failures of executive control processes, the proposed work seeks to evaluate the extent to which people strategically engage in MW and to examine the exogenous control factors and mechanisms involved in these strategic shifts. Specifically, the objective is to examine the extent to which a person's foreknowledge of a task's structure (e.g., expected length and difficulty) can lead to strategic and dynamic modulation of MW. The second line of research will examine the rapidly growing behavior of voluntary media multitasking (vMMT; e.g., playing a YouTube video while writing). Although vMMT can often be thought of as an impulsive behavior that results from a lack of self-control, the proposed work will examine whether people engage in vMMT intelligently and strategically. Specifically we will examine whether people engage in vMMT to strategically service performance-unrelated goals such as reducing boredom and increasing task enjoyment. In addition, we will examine whether people are able to rapidly modulate their engagement with media based on moment-to-moment changes in primary task demands. The third line of research will  examine the state of deep and effortless concentration (DEC), which we have argued is the core feature of peak attentional engagement (`flow'). The proposed studies will test the theoretical view that DEC occurs when limited attentional resources are optimally employed (i.e., not underused and not overstretched), which is thought to occur when task demands closely match the amount of available resources. Taken together, the proposed studies are poised to uncover the basic cognitive mechanisms involved in the strategic aspects of attentional engagement and disengagement. The studies have been designed in collaboration with the trainees in my laboratory, with the added goal of maximizing their learning and skill development opportunities. The long-term goal of the research is to uncover strategies that can be implemented to reduce attentional failures and maximize moments of peak attentional focus. Such strategies will help improve performance in important contexts (e.g., learning) and reduce catastrophic accidents (e.g., motor vehicle accidents) in safety-critical settings.