The Effects of Time on Task in Response Selection - An ERP Study of Mental Fatigue

Abstract

Long lasting involvement in a cognitive task leads to mental fatigue. Substantial efforts have been undertaken to understand this phenomenon. However, it has been demonstrated that some changes with time on task are not only related to mental fatigue. The present study intends to clarify these effects of time on task unrelated to mental fatigue on response selection processes at the behavioural and electrophysiological level (using event-related potentials, ERPs). Participants had to perform a Simon task for more than 3 hours and rated their experienced mental fatigue and motivation to continue with the task at several time points during the experiment. The results show that at the beginning of the experiment some unspecific modulations of training and adaptation are evident. With time on task participants’ ability to resolve response conflict appears to become impaired. The results reveal that time on task effects cannot be completely explained by mental fatigue. Instead, it seems that an interplay of adaptation at the beginning and motivational effects in the course of a task modulate performance and neurophysiological parameters. In future studies it will be important to account for the relative contribution of adaptation and motivation parameters when time on task effects are investigated.

Exploring the effects of mental and muscular fatigue in soccer players’ performance

“…In contrast, mental fatigue resulted in greater stability of the distances between players within the same team but with lower levels of between-player synchrony. A possible explanation for these observations is that mental fatigue impairs players' perception of available information and also might affect their ability to identify suitable possibilities for action (Boksem et al, 2006;Coutinho et al, 2017;Nedelec et al, 2012;Smith, Zeuwts, et al, 2016).…”

“…However, other markers should be used in complement to confirm this assessment, such as the frontal theta waves which can be assessed with an electroencephalogram test (Wascher et al, 2014). The level of motivation of the players could also have been monitored, as it has been shown that motivation may impact more the performance than the mental fatigue in longer lasting exercise protocols (Mockel, Beste, & Wascher, 2015;Wascher et al, 2014). It is possible that the performance measures in the present study might have been influenced by reduced player motivation in the final test conditions.…”

“…The RCOD protocol (Beckett, Schneiker, Wallman, Dawson, & Guelfi, 2009) required players to complete 6 × 20-m efforts each with four 100°directional changes every four meters with 25 s of active recovery between bouts. This task was used based on its potential to induce muscle damage actions, such as accelerations, decelerations and changes of direction (Nedelec et al, 2012). Apparently, the main cause of fatigue during intermittent sprint exercises is the muscular fatigue, as reduced changes in the neural drive have been found (Bishop, 2012;Tomazin et al, 2016).…”

“…It has been shown that changes in the players physical performance during soccer matches (Rampinini et al, 2011), which can be linked not only with contextual events such as team strategy or playing positions (Castellano, Blanco-Villaseñor, & Alvarez, 2011), but also as result of the muscular fatigue (Bishop, 2012;Nedelec et al, 2012;Tomazin, Morin, & Millet, 2016). In fact, the demands of soccer matches (Bush, Barnes, Archer, Hogg, & Bradley, 2015), particularly in high intensity actions and accelerations, results in players experiencing transient muscular fatigue (Silva et al, 2017), which affects their activity profile.…”

How mental fatigue affects the neural sources of P300 component?

“…Mockel et al [12] studied the effect of mental fatigue on ERPs. They asked subjects to perform a Simon task [13] for more than three hours and investigated variations of mental fatigue and motivation.…”