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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 27, 2026

Measurement of Neurophysiological Signals of Ignoring and Attending Processes in Attention Control
09:37

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Published on: July 5, 2015

When attention wanders: how uncontrolled fluctuations in attention affect performance.

Marlene R Cohen1, John H R Maunsell

  • 1Department of Neurobiology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02155, USA. cohenm@pitt.edu

The Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience
|November 4, 2011
PubMed
Summary

Mind wandering affects task performance. Researchers found that attention fluctuations can improve detecting subtle changes but impair noticing dramatic ones, depending on task difficulty.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Science
  • Psychology

Background:

  • Mind wandering is a common phenomenon, yet its impact on performance is hard to measure.
  • Previous research has been limited by the inability to quantify internal attentional fluctuations.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the effects of attentional fluctuations on performance.
  • To understand how varying levels of attention influence perceptual judgments.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized simultaneous neural recordings from macaque visual cortex to measure attentional fluctuations.
  • Correlated neural activity patterns with behavioral performance on perceptual tasks.

Main Results:

  • Attentional fluctuations significantly impact performance in complex ways.
  • Increased attention enhances detection of subtle stimulus changes.
  • Overtly strong attention can hinder the detection of significant stimulus changes.

Conclusions:

  • Behavioral performance measures should account for varying attentional states.
  • Attentional dynamics play a crucial role in perceptual accuracy and are not always beneficial.
  • Understanding attentional fluctuations is key to interpreting performance data.