Self-control enhances vigilance performance in temporally irregular tasks: an fNIRS frontoparietal investigation

Mouloua, Salim Adam; Helton, William S.; Matthews, Gerald; Shaw, Tyler H. · 2024 · Crossref

DOI: 10.3389/fnrgo.2024.1415089

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Summary

This study investigates whether trait self-control influences operator behavior and neural resource strategies during temporally irregular vigilance tasks, addressing a gap in understanding how individual differences affect sustained attention under unpredictable conditions. Prior research yielded mixed results on the self-control-vigilance relationship, often using regular event schedules that may not require significant self-regulation. The authors hypothesized that high trait self-control would enhance performance specifically in irregular tasks by improving resource utilization and allocation, thereby mitigating the vigilance decrement. The experiment employed a 2 × 4 mixed-factorial design with 29 college-age participants randomly assigned to either a temporally regular or irregular event schedule condition. Time was divided into four 6-minute watch periods. Participants performed a duration judgment task where they detected brief critical stimuli (125 ms) among neutral ones (250 ms). In the irregular condition, inter-stimulus intervals were randomly jittered (0.6–3 s) following an inverted-U hazard distribution, whereas the regular condition used fixed 2-second intervals. Trait self-control was measured using the 36-item Tangney, Baumeister, and Boone Self-Control Scale. Neural activity was recorded via functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), measuring oxygenated (HbO2) and deoxygenated hemoglobin (HbR) levels in prefrontal and parietal cortices. Behavioral data included hit rates, false alarms, and signal detection metrics (A’ and c), while stress-state measures assessed task engagement. Results indicated that self-control was associated with better perceptual sensitivity (A’) in the irregular task. Neurophysiologically, a left-lateralized HbO2 effect for temporal irregularity was observed in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Higher self-control correlated with increased HbR (indicating decreased activation) in the right superior parietal lobule (rSPL) and right inferior parietal lobule (rIPL). Notably, only rSPL activation was linked to the vigilance decrement; decreases in rSPL activation predicted better perceptual sensitivity in the irregular task. Additionally, individuals with higher self-control showed decreased task engagement over time in the irregular condition. These findings support a trait-state-brain-behavior model where self-control modulates frontoparietal networks. The study contributes to the field by validating HbO2 and HbR as effective constructs for predicting mental resources through fNIRS, offering superior spatial resolution compared to previous functional transcranial doppler studies. It provides evidence that self-control enhances vigilance performance in irregular tasks through specific neural mechanisms involving the dorsal and ventral attentional networks. The findings suggest that high self-control individuals utilize more efficient resource allocation strategies, potentially reducing the performance decrement typically observed in sustained attention tasks. This work advances the understanding of individual differences in neuroergonomics and offers implications for selecting and training operators for tasks with unpredictable event schedules.

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Topics

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• neuro workload indices
• sustained attention vigilance