Examining the effects of a modified SART when measuring mind-wandering

Mind-wandering (MW) is defined as a shift of attention from external tasks toward internal thoughts and is popularly measured by the sustained attention to response task (SART). SART is able to capture MW, but cannot track the dynamics of mind-wandering over time well. We thus attempted to modify the sustained attention to response task paradigm (mSART) to capture the participant's mind-wandering state over time and quantify the degree of mind-wandering using the current behavioral data.

179 participants from Wenzhou Medical University were recruited to participate in this experiment. The main changes to the experiment included (1) manipulating different no-go stimuli frequencies to control the difficulty of the task and setting 9 modes; (2) extending the experiment time to 30 min; (3) allowing participants to correct errors by pressing the b key. Error rate, Mean RTs, RT CV, and d' were used to reflect MW. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was performed.

ANOVA was used to explore Mean RTs, RT CV and d' for participants with different levels of mind-wandering and significant differences were found (Mean RTs:Welch's F (2, 8606.04) = 579.00, p < .001, η_p ²  = 0.03; RT CV:Welch's F (2, 198.11) = 69.93, p < .001, η_p ²  = 0.18; d':F (2, 176) = 19.88, p < .001, η_p ²  = 0.18). The 30-min experiment was divided into six time windows, and mind-wandering deepens over time.

The mSART paradigm could quantify the extent of MW based on changes in the frequency at which the no-go stimuli were presented and also revealed that the recommended length of the experiment was about 20 min.