title: The Effects of Varying Break Length on Attention and Time on Task.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We aimed to discover how varying the length of task breaks would affect the time-on-task effect in subsequent testing periods.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  An important means of preventing errors and accidents caused by mental fatigue and time on task is to intersperse rest intervals within long work periods. Most studies of rest pauses to date have examined their effects in real-world tasks and settings, and their subtler effects on behavior, as measurable by laboratory paradigms, are not well understood.
  
  
  METHODS
  We studied a group of 71 participants as they completed a 1-hr auditory oddball task with two rest opportunities. Rest intervals were 1, 5, or 10 min long.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Improvements in reaction time were significantly positively associated with length of the rest break. However, longer breaks were also associated with steeper decrements in performance in the subsequent task block. Across individuals, the amount of immediate improvement correlated with the extent of later decline.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results support a resource/effort-allocation model of fatigue, whereby longer breaks bias participants toward greater effort expenditure on resumption of the task when cognitive resources may not have been fully replenished.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings may have implications for the refinement of work-rest schedules in industries where time-on-task degradation in performance is an important concern.
authors.affiliation: Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, Singapore julian.lim@duke-nus.edu.sg.
authors.forename: Julian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.affiliation: National University of Singapore, Singapore.
authors.forename: Kenneth
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kwok
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D005222:Mental Fatigue / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012146:Rest / Q000502:physiology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D056345:Theory of Mind; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: effort allocation; mental fatigue; resource theory; rest break; sustained attention