title: Signal salience and the mindlessness theory of vigilance.
abstract: The present study was designed to explore whether sustained attention tasks can be adequately described by a mindlessness perspective or a limited resource perspective. One hundred and seventy six participants (88 women and 88 men) were assigned at random to one of two signal salience conditions: high and low. Performance and self-reported states, Energetic Arousal, Tense Arousal, Task-Related-Thoughts, and Task-Unrelated-Thoughts, were collected. Overall performance efficiency and the rate of the vigilance decrement were influenced by the salience level of the signal being observed. Post-task self-reports of Task-Unrelated-Thoughts were significantly related to overall performance efficiency, but not with the vigilance decrement. Post-task self-reports of Energetic Arousal were significantly related to both overall performance and the vigilance decrement. The results support a resource theory perspective in regards to the vigilance decrement and are in contradiction to the mindlessness theory in regards to the vigilance decrement.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Michigan Technological University, 1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, MI 49931, USA. Deak_Helton@yahoo.com
authors.forename: William S
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Helton
authors.forename: Joel S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Warm
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D001332:Automatism / Q000523:psychology*; D001364:Awareness; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D005222:Mental Fatigue / Q000523:psychology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011601:Psychophysics; D011930:Reaction Time; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological