Previous research on boredom suggest it function as an
important self-regulatory signal, indicating that the current
state of the environment carries opportunity-costs and
therefore driving the need to explore alternative activities. Trait
boredom proneness is associated with negative consequences
including increased risk-taking and impulsivity. These
findings often rely on self-reports and not much is known about
the role of state and trait boredom in controlled laboratory
tasks, or their neural correlates. Sixty-two participants
completed the Balloon Analogue Risk Task and a go/no-go
task while electrical brain activity was recorded using EEG.
Results showed that state boredom leads to impulsivity and
poor performance monitoring, as evident by behavioral,
subjective and ERP metrics. Trait boredom was associated
with increased risk-taking, and modulated the correlation
between errors and state boredom: high boredom proneness
increased the sensitivity of trait boredom to errors. Overall,
these findings emphasize the involvement of executive
functions in the interaction between state and trait boredom.