title: Disrupting monotony while increasing demand: benefits of rest and intervening tasks on vigilance.
abstract: In the experiments presented here, we examined the impact of intervening tasks on the vigilance decrement. In Experiment 1 participants either (a) continuously performed a visuospatial vigilance task, (b) received a rest break, or (c) temporarily performed a different, demanding visuospatial task in the middle of the vigil. Both taking a rest break and performing the intervening task were found to alleviate the vigilance decrement in response times. Target detection accuracy was equivalent across groups. In Experiment 2 we obtained subjective ratings of task demand, boredom, motivation, and mind wandering for both the vigilance task and intervening task administered in Experiment 1. The intervening task was rated as more demanding in terms of mental demand, physical demand, temporal demand, own performance, effort, and frustration. In addition, participants also reported being more bored, less motivated, and reported mind wandering more frequently when completing the vigil. Disruptions to task monotony (even if cognitively demanding), can alleviate the vigilance decrement. The implications of this finding with respect to current theoretical accounts of the vigilance decrement are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave. West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada. bcwralph@uwaterloo.ca.
authors.forename: Brandon C W
authors.initials: BC
authors.lastname: Ralph
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave. West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada.
authors.forename: Kris
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Onderwater
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave. West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada.
authors.forename: David R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Thomson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave. West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Smilek
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012146:Rest / Q000502:physiology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult