When we're on Sadie-duty, we experience a constant low hum of being on-task, of wondering from where the next crisis will come--and will it involve number one or number two?
The direct contrast between external distractions and being on-task revealed a small activation in the left dorsal MPFC (Table 3).
The direct contrast between task-related interferences and being on-task revealed a cluster of activation in the right ventral MPFC (Table 3).
Regarding thought-probes, participants reported being on-task for 31.59% (SD = 14.27) of probes, task-related interferences for 22.13% (SD = 7.62) of probes, external distractions for 25.44% (SD = 10.04) of probes, and mind-wandering for 20.83% (SD = 11.17) of probes.
Considering that task-related interferences and external distractions were associated with activations in distinct subregions of MPFC (i.e., ventral versus dorsal MPFC) compared to being on-task (see Table 3), we also performed direct contrasts between these two kinds of reports to further examine these possible differences regarding MPFC activations.
Finally, the direct contrast of mind-wandering with being on-task revealed clusters of activation in the MPFC, the PCC extending into the left Rsp and PHC, the left pIPL, and the bilateral ITG/MTG (Figure 4, Table 3; see also Table S2 for clusters of activation located outside a priori areas of interest).
and were probed periodically to determine if they were on-task, mind-wandering, or distracted by information in the environment.
(She talks to herself and speaks about herself in the third person when she is on-task. Well, actually, all the time. It's adorable).
These sensory inputs are irrelevant to target identification and thus are distractors while participants are on-task.
These cognitive processes (e.g., self-attribution) are irrelevant to target identification while participants are on-task, and therefore the information processed in them should be suppressed.
