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The pause that refreshes: Break-taking occurs when task demands are reduced allowing for replenishing of attentional resources

Published: 04 October 2022 Publication History

Abstract

There is a controversy over whether the difficulty (i.e. mental demands) of a task leads to more or less mind wandering, with studies showing apparently conflicting results. Guided by the established association between mind wandering and fidgeting, here we propose a new interpretative model for mind wandering based on Non-Instrumental Movement Inhibition (NIMI), an active effort to suppress embodied natural fluctuations, which would otherwise result in both mental and physical displacements. In a video game-based experiment, break-taking (during level changes) functioned as a trigger for people to suspend NIMI, detectable as fidgeting. They suspended NIMI to transiently replenish depleted mental resources, which allowed mental arousal, detectable as postural uplift. We conclude that task persistence (beside difficulty level) creates a substrate (a latent state with depleted mental resources) encouraging mind wandering to temporarily replenish mental resources to re-control attention.

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  • (2023)Two lingering delays in a go/no-go task: mind wandering and caution/uncertainty slow down thought probe response timesBehaviour & Information Technology10.1080/0144929X.2023.229166043:9(1729-1739)Online publication date: 19-Dec-2023

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  1. The pause that refreshes: Break-taking occurs when task demands are reduced allowing for replenishing of attentional resources

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        cover image ACM Other conferences
        ECCE '22: Proceedings of the 33rd European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics
        October 2022
        183 pages
        ISBN:9781450398084
        DOI:10.1145/3552327
        Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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        Published: 04 October 2022

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        Author Tags

        1. NIMI
        2. attentional resources
        3. difficulty
        4. fidgeting
        5. mind wandering

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        ECCE 2022
        ECCE 2022: 33rd European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics
        October 4 - 7, 2022
        Kaiserslautern, Germany

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        • (2023)Two lingering delays in a go/no-go task: mind wandering and caution/uncertainty slow down thought probe response timesBehaviour & Information Technology10.1080/0144929X.2023.229166043:9(1729-1739)Online publication date: 19-Dec-2023

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