Challenge and error: Critical events and attention-related errors

• Published in: Cognition 2011-12, Vol.121 (3), p.437-446
• Main Authors: Cheyne, James Allan, Carriere, Jonathan S.A., Solman, Grayden J.F., Smilek, Daniel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accidents; Activity levels. Psychomotricity; Adult; Attention; Attention - physiology; Attention lapses; Attention-related errors; Biological and medical sciences; Choice Behavior - physiology; Cognitive development; Cognitive Processes; Comparative Analysis; Conflict; Control theory; Educational Environment; Everyday life; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Investigations; Learning Processes; Male; Neuropsychological Tests; Partnerships in Education; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Psychomotor Performance - physiology; Reaction Time; Surveys and Questionnaires; Sustained attention; Sustained Attention to Response Task; Task Analysis; The SART; Vigilance. Attention. Sleep
• ISSN: 0010-0277; 1873-7838
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2011.07.010

► We examine human reactivity to task challenges and errors. ► Challenge and error reactivity generates a cycle of attention lapses ↔ task errors. ► Results challenge generality of current conflict monitoring and control models. ► Our bidirectional model provides framework to understand how “errors beget errors”. Attention lapses resulting from reactivity to task challenges and their consequences constitute a pervasive factor affecting everyday performance errors and accidents. A bidirectional model of attention lapses (error ↔ attention-lapse: Cheyne, Solman, Carriere, & Smilek, 2009) argues that errors beget errors by generating attention lapses; resource-depleting cognitions interfering with attention to subsequent task challenges. Attention lapses lead to errors, and errors themselves are a potent consequence often leading to further attention lapses potentially initiating a spiral into more serious errors. We investigated this challenge-induced error ↔ attention-lapse model using the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART), a GO–NOGO task requiring continuous attention and response to a number series and withholding of responses to a rare NOGO digit. We found response speed and increased commission errors following task challenges to be a function of temporal distance from, and prior performance on, previous NOGO trials. We conclude by comparing and contrasting the present theory and findings to those based on choice paradigms and argue that the present findings have implications for the generality of conflict monitoring and control models.