In Response to Warnings: Exploring Individual Differences in Sustained Attention Performance

Abstract

Sustained attention paradigms can assess an individual’s ability to maintain continuous effort and accurate response rate over a period of time. Measuring individual differences in vigilance capabilities and factors that influence performance can be foundational in the design of user-centered technologies and protocols. In the current work, 137 participants completed the SART (Sustained Attention to Response Task) where half ( n = 69) received a warning that they would have to re-start the task if they fell below a performance threshold and the remainder ( n = 68) received no such warning. Measures of trait boredom proneness, state-based boredom, and motivation were also collected. Results indicated that the presence of a warning stimuli (extrinsic motivator) significantly affected overall performance on the SART. Discussion focused on how individual differences in the completion of “boring” tasks influences performance on work-related task outcomes.