Practice does not make perfect in a modified sustained attention to response task

Abstract

In the current investigation, we examined the changes in performance, task-related thoughts (TRT), and task-unrelated thoughts (TUT) over four sessions of a modified sustained attention to response task (SART). Eighteen participants completed a clockwise manual selection SART (Head and Helton in Conscious Cogn 22:913-919, 2013) and a conscious thought questionnaire once a week for four weeks. Response times and errors of commission oscillated over sessions in line with a motor strategy interpretation of the SART. As participants became faster in the task, they made more commission errors. The conscious thought questionnaire failed to show a relationship between errors of commission and TRT and TUT on the SART at either a between-subject or within-subject level of analysis. Commission errors in the SART may be better measures of executive motor control and response strategy than perceptual decoupling.