Does being away with the fairies really matter? The importance of thought content for task performance on a Go-No-Go target detection task

The sustained attention to response task (SART) is a high Go, low No-Go target detection task. Researchers have utilized the SART to study the impact of thought content on human performance. This area of research faces several method issues. Previous research often utilizes psychometrically dubious measures of thought content, conflates trait and state processes, and lacks multiple assessments to enable state process testing. In the present study, 54 participants performed 10 iterations of the SART. After each SART, participants assessed both task-related thoughts and the lack of thoughts occurring during the SART. The lack of awareness of thoughts could be considered a form of mindlessness. Commission errors declined over iterations of the SART, indicating response inhibition improvement with task experience. The within-subjects (state) correlation between self-reported lack of thoughts (i.e., mindlessness) and errors in the SART was, however, near zero, indicating minimal, if any, relationship between self-reported mindlessness and performance. The importance of mindlessness or a lack of awareness of thought content on human performance in the traditional SART may be exaggerated. Researchers using SART or tasks with similar paradigms to assess thought content should consider these findings when interpreting their data.