Timecourses showing mind wandering and heuristic strategies interact complexly to affect SART performance rapidly

INTRODUCTION: Go/no-go tasks (such as the sustained attention to response task, SART) may elicit two lingering effects arising from (a) mind wandering and (b) the mental strategy adopted. AIM: To determine the onset rate of these effects and whether the effects are additive or interact in a complex way. METHODS: An online experiment (~20 minutes) with 78 volunteers who experienced 6 experimental blocks of SART with go-percentages of 100%, 87%, 75%, 50%, 25% and 6% in a randomized order (inter-trial interval = 5.2s). Each block was followed by mind wandering thought probes and rating scales. Analysis was done with linear mixed effects models, non-parametric group tests, and cumulative distribution probability graphs. RESULTS: Mind wandering accelerated reaction time when accompanying haste, but it slowed reaction time when accompanying inhibitory passivity. In both cases it increased error-making. Reaction times reflected new strategies within 30 seconds. CONCLUSIONS: Mind wandering can both accelerate or decelerate performance depending on the context and its heuristic strategy; it typically co-opts parallel mental resources when perceived task demands are low or not persistent.