The present study was designed to explore whether sustained attention tasks can be
adequately described by a mindlessness perspective or a limited resource perspective. One
hundred and seventy six participants (88 women and 88 men) were assigned at random to
one of two signal salience conditions: high and low. Performance and self-reported states,
Energetic Arousal, Tense Arousal, Task-Related-Thoughts, and Task-Unrelated-Thoughts,
were collected. Overall performance efficiency and the rate of the vigilance decrement were …