Cognition arises from dynamic interactions of distributed brain regions operating as large-scale networks (Bressler & Menon, 2010). With cognitive impairments in engagement, retention, attention, and boredom being problematic in education and within the individual’s cognitive flexibility been suggested as being a key to learning (Pekrun et al, 2014). Boredom has been suggested to have negative cognitive, affective, and behavioural consequences (Eastwood et al, 2012) with those who have a high level of boredom are seen to have increased propensity to take risks, have a greater level of addiction and have poor outcomes in achievement settings (Joireman, Anderson, & Strathman, 2003; Pekrun et al, 2014). It has been further suggested that boredom has consistently been associated with failures in remembering information, becoming engaged within task and sustained attention (Malkovsky et al, 2012) shallow information processing (Goetz & Hall, 2012, low attentiveness (Farmer & Sundberg, 1986), less effort (Belton & Priyadharshini, 2007; Pekrun, Goetz, Daniels, Stupnisky, & Perry, 2010), and consequentially low grades (Robinson, 1975; Wasson, 1981). This often leads to even more severe effects such as absenteeism (Hamilton, Haier, & Buchsbaum, 1984), drop out (Dube & Orpinas, 2009; Fallis & Opotow, 2003), depression (Giambra & Traynor, 1978), and poor behaviour in the classroom delinquency (Harris, 2000; Vodanovich & Kass, 1990). Boredom is seen as a letting system which alerts the individual to deficits in meaning or attention and preventing the individual from wanting to carry out task/activities that are deemed to have little value (Chater, et al., 2019; Elpidorou, 2018; Westgate, 2020; Westgate & Wilson, 2018). It has been suggested by Yamamoto & Ishikawa (2010) that this alerting system acts in two ways, first by motivating the individual to engage in actions and thoughts which they believe will be interesting and enjoyable, and to avoid those they believe to be boring and a wate of time. Secondarily, by acting as a built-in reinforcement system which rewards different ways of thinking and behaving that are meaningful and optimally challenging, hold a personal interest, are deemed as pleasurable and enjoyable and dismissing those the individual perceives are not matching these elements. It has been mentioned by Bench & Lench, (2019); Kapoor et al (2015) that there are ways to prevent an individual from becoming bored, these are: 1) regulating cognitive demands and resources to restore the individuals attention), 2) regulating goal value and to restore the meaning of the task/activity 3) switching activities altogether and offering more meaning, 4) having activities/task that hold novel alternatives with 4) being mentioned by Sonnentag & Fritz, (2015) are having micro breaks which reduces the diss-stress that boredom induces. Boredom impact upon the brains attentional control resulting spontaneous mind-wandering (Isacescu, Struk and Danckert, 2016) has been researched via neuroimaging with research showing neural activation within a network of brain regions known collectively as the default mode network is seen to be involved (Binder et al, 1999; Weissman et al, 2009). The default mode network is a highly interconnected set of brain regions that supports internally focused thinking and is activated when there is no external task or stimulus for an individual to engage with (Buckner, Andrews‐Hanna, & Schacter, 2008; Mason et al, 2007). The default mode network refers to a set of brain regions that support internally focused thought (e.g. thinking to oneself, imagining the past and envisioning the future) that becomes active when individuals are not engaged in any externally focused activity or task (Andrews-Hanna 2012; This element of the Default mode network has been mentioned by Gusnard and Raichle (2001) Greicius et al (2003); Mason et al (2007); Weissman et al (2006) that activity in the default mode network has been shown to decrease when one is actively engaged in an activity/task when the attention is directed and engaged upon the activity/task. The activity in a central executive network typically increases while activity in the default model network decreases (Greicius et al. 2003; Mason et al. 2007; Weissman et al. 2006).
In opposing to the functioning of the default mode network is the Salience Network. This network was first used by Seeley et al (2007) to describe a set of paralimbic structures, most prominently the anterior cingulate cortex and bilateral anterior insular cortices. According to Menon and Uddin (2010) the Salience Network facilitates the detection of important environmental stimuli, which engages the brain’s attentional and higher-order control processes while disengaging other systems that are not immediately task relevant. The roles of the Salience Network in include: (1) bottom–up detection of salient events; (2) switching between other large-scale networks to facilitate access to attentional resources when a salient event is detected; (3) interaction of the anterior insula with other regions to modulate autonomic reactivity to salient stimuli; and (4) strong functional coupling with the anterior cingulate cortex that facilitates rapid access to the motor system (Menon and Uddin, 2010). These two neurocognitive networks are relevant for efficient cognition and the functional coupling between the Salience Network and the Default Mode Network is critically important for performing tasks requiring cognitive control or switching attention between externally and internally salient stimuli (Fransson & Marrelec, 2008; Menon & Uddin, 2010; Sridharan et al., 2008). In response to externally salient events requiring a high level of cognitive effort, Seeley et al (2007) suggest that the Salience Network is activated (Seeley et al., 2007) and the Default Mode Network is suppressed, whereas during internally focused attention, such as self-monitoring or memory retrieval, the Default Mode Network is activated (Spreng, Mar, & Kim, 2009) and the Salience Network is suppressed (Buckner, Andrews-Hanna, & Schacter, 2008). This reciprocal patterning between Salience Network and the Default Mode Network are required during episodes of successful cognitive effort. These interactions among all the Salience Network and the Default Mode Network are important for performing tasks requiring cognitive control or switching attention between externally and internally salient stimuli (Fransson & Marrelec, 2008; Menon & Uddin, 2010; Sridharan et al., 2008) and across a range of cognitive tasks like engagement, retention, and especially boredom (Chiong et al., 2013; Jilka et al., 2014; Sridharan et al., 2008).
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