Testing thought-probe frequency for measuring mind-wandering along with vigilance and cognitive control loss: A study with the ANTI-Vea task

Abstract

Vigilance decrement refers to the decline in sustained attention over time during prolonged tasks, which often leads to increased errors and accidents. However, to date, there are no experimental tasks that simultaneously measure changes in vigilance, cognitive control, and mind-wandering (MW) across time-on-task. We adapted the Attentional Network Test for Interactions and Vigilance–executive and arousal components (ANTI-Vea) task to integrate mind-wandering measures along with assessments of vigilance and cognitive control. By inserting thought probes (TPs) at different frequencies per block, we aimed to identify the optimal TP rate to capture mind-wandering changes without interfering with the measurement of vigilance, thereby providing an integrative assessment of changes in mind-wandering, cognitive control, and vigilance across time. We conducted two experiments: one in the laboratory with 90 students from the National University of Córdoba, Argentina, and another online, as a replication, with 180 students from the University of Granada, Spain. Participants were divided into three groups (4, 8, 12 TPs per block) and completed the ANTI-Vea-TP task. The results revealed that the inclusion of TPs was effective in detecting changes in mind-wandering over time-on-task. Moreover, TP frequency did not have a significant effect on mind-wandering reports, vigilance, or cognitive control over time-on-task. We discuss the potential suitability of this tool for investigating the interaction between vigilance, cognitive control, and mind-wandering, in both laboratory and online environments, which is essential for evaluating different theories of vigilance decrement.