Prolonging the response movement inhibits the feed-forward motor program in the sustained attention to response task

Kyle M Wilson,Neil R De Joux,Kristin M Finkbeiner,Paul N Russell,Jenny R Retzler,William S Helton

doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.01.001

Abstract

Despite widespread use in clinical and experimental contexts, debate continues over whether or not the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) successfully measures sustained attention. Altering physical aspects of the response movement required to SART stimuli may help identify whether performance is a better measure of perceptual decoupling, or response strategies and motor inhibition. Participants completed a SART where they had to manually move a mouse cursor to respond to stimuli, and another SART where this extra movement was not required, as in a typical SART. Additionally, stimuli were located at either a close or a far distance away. Commission errors were inversely related to distance in the manual movement condition, as the farther distance led to longer response times which gave participants more time to inhibit prepotent responses and thus prevent commission errors. Self-reported measures of mental demand and fatigue suggested there were no differences in mental demands between the manual and automatic condition; instead the differences were primarily in physical demands. No differences were found for task-unrelated thoughts between the manual and automatic condition. The movement effect combined with participants' subjective reports are evidence for time dependent action stopping, not greater cognitive engagement. These findings support a response strategy perspective as opposed to a perceptual decoupling perspective, and have implications for authors considering using the SART. Applied implications of this research are also discussed.

Highlights

The Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART; Robertson, Manly, Andrade, Baddeley, and Yiend, 1997) is a Go/No-Go response task used for measuring sustained attention deficits due to, for example, traumatic brain injury (TBI; Chan, 2001; Dockree et al, 2004; Manly et al, 2004; O'Keeffe, Dockree, and Robertson, 2004; Robertson et al, 1997), ADHD (Bellgrove, Hawi, Gill, and Robertson, 2006; Johnson et al, 2007; Manly et al, 2001; Mullins, Bellgrove, Gill, and Robertson, 2005), depression (Smallwood, O'Connor, Sudbery, and Obonsawin, 2007), and mind-wandering (Christoff, Gordon, Smallwood, Smith, and Schooler, 2009)
The tendency to use the “encode and click” or “encode and check” strategies is influenced by top-down executive control or explicit strategy choice. This supports the idea that SART performance is driven mostly by response strategy, as does the finding that providing warning cues to indicate the arrival of No-Go stimuli in the SART helps to prevent commission errors and mitigates the speed–accuracy trade-off (Finkbeiner, Wilson, Russell, and Helton, 2015; Helton, Head, and Russell, 2011)
The current experiment employed a modified version of the SART to investigate the effects that, 1) changing the physical method of acquiring targets and 2) manipulating target distance, had on SART performance. This was done with two manipulations: Firstly, to respond to stimuli participants were required to either make no movement except to press the mouse button, or to make a movement to the location of the stimulus before pressing the button

Summary

Introduction

The Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART; Robertson, Manly, Andrade, Baddeley, and Yiend, 1997) is a Go/No-Go response task used for measuring sustained attention deficits due to, for example, traumatic brain injury (TBI; Chan, 2001; Dockree et al, 2004; Manly et al, 2004; O'Keeffe, Dockree, and Robertson, 2004; Robertson et al, 1997), ADHD (Bellgrove, Hawi, Gill, and Robertson, 2006; Johnson et al, 2007; Manly et al, 2001; Mullins, Bellgrove, Gill, and Robertson, 2005), depression (Smallwood, O'Connor, Sudbery, and Obonsawin, 2007), and mind-wandering (Christoff, Gordon, Smallwood, Smith, and Schooler, 2009). The tendency to use the “encode and click” or “encode and check” strategies is influenced by top-down executive control or explicit strategy choice This supports the idea that SART performance is driven mostly by response strategy, as does the finding that providing warning cues to indicate the arrival of No-Go stimuli in the SART helps to prevent commission errors and mitigates the speed–accuracy trade-off (Finkbeiner, Wilson, Russell, and Helton, 2015; Helton, Head, and Russell, 2011). Since longer movement times should essentially mean longer RTs, participants should make fewer commission errors, because the longer RTs will provide them with more time to inhibit the feed-forward ballistic motor program and withhold responses to No-Go stimuli more often This is consistent with a simple response inhibition or response strategy perspective of SART performance.

Participants

Materials

Procedure

SART performance

Subjective state

Discussion