Motivation and reward can have differential effects on separate aspects of sustained
attention. We previously demonstrated that continuous reward/punishment throughout a …

Abstract Thomson, Besner, and Smilek (2016) propose that performance decrements
associated with sustained attention are not consistently the result of a decline in perceptual …

Our ability to stay focused is limited: prolonged performance of a task typically results in
mental fatigue and decrements in performance over time. This so-called vigilance …

Decrements over time in sustained attention (vigilance decrement) have been attributed to
filtering, reduced tonic arousal, neural habituation, and related factors. A recent taxonomic …

Staying attentive is challenging enough when carrying out everyday tasks, such as reading
or sitting through a lecture, and failures to do so can be frustrating and inconvenient …

Although reward is known to have a powerful influence on performance, its effects on the
ability to continuously sustain performance over time are poorly understood. The current …

The dominant theory amongst vigilance researchers is resource theory. From this theoretical
perspective the increase in lapses with time on task, the vigilance decrement, is due to the …

Maintaining sustained attention over time is an effortful process limited by finite cognitive
resources. Recent theories describe the role of motivation in the allocation of such resources …

Across four experiments we examined the effects of goal-setting, feedback, and incentivizing
manipulations on sustained attention. In addition to measuring task performance, we …

We newly propose that the vigilance decrement occurs because the cognitive control system
fails to maintain active the goal of the vigilance task over prolonged periods of time (goal …