Mind Wandering

Question 1

Mind Wandering

Answer 1

off-task thought, task-unrelated thought, stimulus-independent thought, or daydreaming

Question 2

One major challenges associated with MW research is the lack of

Answer 2

experimental control

Question 3

MW has been conceived of in various ways (4)

Answer 3

1. Attention decoupled from the environment (or ‘primary task’)
2. A failure of executive control
3. Type of mental process characterized by a particular kind of flow, or movement, of thought across topics
4. By taking a family resemblance approach

Question 4

MW has been extensively studied in recent years, yielding many associations with various kinds of changes in

Answer 4

1. Behavioural (performance, response time, general behavioural variability, eye-movements)
2. Neural

Question 5

Frequency of MW reported varies across certain clinical populations

Answer 5

(depressed, anxious, OCD, ADD), as well as across the lifespan

Question 6

costs of mind wandering

Answer 6

academic achievement, workplace productivity, distracted driving, negative effects on mood, reduced vigilance, general impairments in comprehension, performance, etc.

Question 7

possible benefits of mind wandering

Answer 7

creativity, problem solving, insight, planning, dishabituation, memory consolidation, positive effects on mood, associative and/or divergent thinking, etc.

Question 8

self reports for mind wandering

Answer 8

is the primary means of measurement used in MW research, though reports are sometimes considered in the context of other converging measures (e.g. performance, neural activity, etc.) for validation purposes

Question 9

Experience sampling paradigms and mind wandering

Answer 9

use pseudo-randomly timed probes embedded within another experimental task to measure self-reported MW

Question 10

Triangulation

Answer 10

can also be used to attempt to ‘validate’ the reports, which involves looking for multiple converging measures (e.g. reports, performance, and neural activity)

Question 11

validating reports of mind wandering

Answer 11

For many tasks, reports of mind wandering correlate with performance deficits…This can be taken as converging evidence that somewhat ‘validates’ (or corroborates) the reports…however the relationship between performance and MW is not always the same (e.g. MW during an easy task isn’t always associated with performance problems

Question 12

The sustained attention to response task (SART) is often used to study

Answer 12

mind wandering

Question 13

SART task

Answer 13

Participants are presented with a series of digits and are asked to press a button in response to everything except for the target number …Failure to inhibit the (prepotent) response to targets is taken as behavioural evidence for mind wandering`

Question 14

The default network and mind wandering

Answer 14

is thought to become more active during periods of decoupled attention, and less active during periods of coupled attention

Question 15

awareness

Answer 15

being aware or unaware of your attentional focus just prior to being probed)

Question 16

Default network and mindwandering results

Answer 16

The default network was indeed found to be more active just prior to reports of mind wandering, as well as regions associated with executive control

Question 17

MW w/o awareness

Answer 17

was associated with stronger neural activation of both default mode and executive control regions

Question 18

MW and cortical matter thickness

Answer 18

Participants reporting more frequent deliberate MW were associated with thicker cortical matter in PFC

Question 19

Participants reporting more frequent deliberate MW were associated with thicker cortical matter in PFC could indicate

Answer 19

a more robust integration of the default mode network and the fronto-parietal executive network (possibly implicating better control?)

Question 20

Participants reporting more frequent spontaneous mind wandering were associated with

Answer 20

Cortical thinning in regions involved with cognitive control (parietal and posterior temporal left-hemisphere regions) (possibly implicating worse control?) and Greater connectivity between the intraparietal sulcus and a region of cortex that makes contact with both limbic and default mode regions (possibly implicating ‘stronger’ input from the default mode network?)

Question 21

differences in brains of mind wanderers

Answer 21

structural differences (white matter thickness), some differences in functional connectivity were also observed

Question 22

Mind wandering is also studied using lots of other methods

Answer 22

TMS, eye-Tracking, fNIRS various ecologically valid contexts