Restoring vigilance in multi-task scenarios: a comparison of meditation, exposure to nature, music, and action video games

This study aimed to investigate the cognitive mechanisms behind vigilance changes in multi-task scenarios. Moreover, we compared the effects of four types of rest activities, i.e. meditation, virtual exposure to nature, listening to music, playing an action video game (AVG), on mitigating possible performance decline and regulating task-induced emotional changes in complex multiple-source vigilance tasks. Results of a two-session experiment on fifty-six participants using the Multi-Attribute Task Battery-II (MATB-II) suggest that the participants’ arousal levels increased with time-on-task in both sessions, and performance decrement was observed only in the second session. Mindlessness measures were associated with performance fluctuations. All types of rest led to significant performance improvement in the second session, with meditation having the largest effect and AVG having the smallest. Rest activities restore performance by improving executive control (meditation), reducing emotional activity (meditation and nature exposure), or boosting arousal (music). In complex systems, operators often perform multiple tasks over prolonged periods of time, and rest periods are provided between these periods. This study compared four types of rest activities in terms of their effects on mitigating possible performance decline and regulating task-induced emotional changes in this context.

本研究旨在探究多任务场景下警觉性变化背后的认知机制。此外，本研究比较了四种休息活动（即冥想、虚拟自然暴露、听音乐、玩动作视频游戏（AVG））在复杂多源警觉任务中对缓解潜在绩效下降及调节任务诱发情绪变化的效果。对56名参与者开展的两阶段实验（采用多属性任务电池-II（MATB-II））结果显示，在两个阶段中，参与者的唤醒水平均随任务时长增加而上升，仅在第二阶段观察到绩效下降。无意识测量指标与绩效波动存在关联。所有类型的休息均能显著改善第二阶段的绩效，其中冥想效果最显著，AVG效果最弱。休息活动通过提升执行控制能力（冥想）、降低情绪活动（冥想与自然暴露）或增强唤醒水平（音乐）来恢复绩效。在复杂系统中，操作者常需长时间执行多项任务，且任务间设有休息时段。本研究在此情境下比较了四种休息活动对缓解潜在绩效下降及调节任务诱发情绪变化的效果。