Pupillary Correlates of Sustained Attention During Attempts to Mobilize Effort

Abstract

The present study aimed to examine the extent to which individuals were capable of mobilizing more effort to enhance task performance and how this mobilization was demonstrated through the pupillary response. Participants (N=82) from the University of Oregon completed a 30-minute psychomotor vigilance task in which they were presented with a row of 0s on the screen and asked to press the spacebar as soon as the numbers began to change in value. Participants were randomly assigned to the Control condition or the Try Hard condition which had an instruction to 'try hard' prior to certain trials. Results suggested that those in the Try Hard condition had improved performance (faster RTs, less off-task behavior, less lapses in attention) and a larger pupil size, thus demonstrating that individuals are in fact able to increase effort levels when encouraged to do so. For participants within the Try Hard condition, there was no significant difference in performance or pupillary response based on trial type. This implies that similar levels of effort were applied in this condition whether or not the 'try hard' instruction was presented.