Mind-wandering
Encyclopedia
Mind-wandering is the experience of thoughts not remaining on a single topic for a long period of time, particularly when people are not engaged in an attention-demanding task. It is the topic of research in the study of attention
and consciousness
, as it relates to attentional lapses, or digression due to lack of focus on the task in hand.
Mind-wandering tends to occur during driving, reading and other activities where vigilance may be low. In these situations, people report having no memory of what happened in the surrounding environment while pre-occupied with their thoughts. This is known as the decoupling hypothesis. Studies using event-related potentials (ERPs) have quantified the extent that mind-wandering reduces the cortical processing of the external environment. When thinking is not focused on the task in hand, the brain processes both task relevant and unrelated sensory information in a less detailed manner.
Mind-wandering appears to be both a stable trait
of people and a transient state. Studies have linked performance problems in the laboratory and in daily life. Mind-wandering is also intimately linked to states of affect; studies indicate that task unrelated thought is common in states of low or depressed mood. Mind-wandering is also common when drunk through the consumption of alcohol.
It is common during mind-wandering to engage in mental time travel—the consideration of personally relevant events from the past and the anticipation of events in the future. Studies have demonstrated a prospective bias to spontaneous thought because individuals tend to engage in more future than past related thoughts during mind-wandering.
and Jerome Singer in the late 1960s and it has more recently become a growing research topic in cognitive psychology
, cognitive science
and cognitive neuroscience
.
to explore deficits in executive control after lesions to the frontal lobe
.
called the train of thought
and the stream of consciousness
. This aspect of mind-wandering research is focused on understanding how the brain generates the spontaneous and relatively unconstrained thoughts that are experienced when the mind wanders. One candidate neural mechanism for generating this aspect of experience is a network of regions in the frontal
and parietal
cortex known as the default network
. This network of regions is highly active even when subjects are resting with their eyes closed suggesting a role in generating spontaneous internal thoughts. One relatively controversial result is that periods of mind wandering are associated with increased activation in both the default and executive system a result that implies that mind-wandering may often be goal oriented.
In addition to neural models, computational models of consciousness
based on Bernard Baars' Global Workspace theory
suggest that mind-wandering, or "spontaneous thought" may involve competition between internally and externally generated activities attempting to gain access to a limited capacity central network.
Attention
Attention is the cognitive process of paying attention to one aspect of the environment while ignoring others. Attention is one of the most intensely studied topics within psychology and cognitive neuroscience....
and consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
, as it relates to attentional lapses, or digression due to lack of focus on the task in hand.
Mind-wandering tends to occur during driving, reading and other activities where vigilance may be low. In these situations, people report having no memory of what happened in the surrounding environment while pre-occupied with their thoughts. This is known as the decoupling hypothesis. Studies using event-related potentials (ERPs) have quantified the extent that mind-wandering reduces the cortical processing of the external environment. When thinking is not focused on the task in hand, the brain processes both task relevant and unrelated sensory information in a less detailed manner.
Mind-wandering appears to be both a stable trait
Trait theory
In psychology, Trait theory is a major approach to the study of human personality. Trait theorists are primarily interested in the measurement of traits, which can be defined as habitual patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion. According to this perspective, traits are relatively stable over...
of people and a transient state. Studies have linked performance problems in the laboratory and in daily life. Mind-wandering is also intimately linked to states of affect; studies indicate that task unrelated thought is common in states of low or depressed mood. Mind-wandering is also common when drunk through the consumption of alcohol.
It is common during mind-wandering to engage in mental time travel—the consideration of personally relevant events from the past and the anticipation of events in the future. Studies have demonstrated a prospective bias to spontaneous thought because individuals tend to engage in more future than past related thoughts during mind-wandering.
History
Mind-wandering was first discussed by John AntrobusJohn Antrobus
John Antrobus is an English playwright and script writer. He has written extensively for stage, screen, TV and radio, including the epic World War II play, Crete and Sergeant Pepper at the Royal Court...
and Jerome Singer in the late 1960s and it has more recently become a growing research topic in cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology is a subdiscipline of psychology exploring internal mental processes.It is the study of how people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems.Cognitive psychology differs from previous psychological approaches in two key ways....
, cognitive science
Cognitive science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...
and cognitive neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience is an academic field concerned with the scientific study of biological substrates underlying cognition, with a specific focus on the neural substrates of mental processes. It addresses the questions of how psychological/cognitive functions are produced by the brain...
.
Research methods
Mind-wandering is studied using thought sampling, or simply asking participants what they are thinking about at any given moment. Another way in which mind-wandering has been studied is through the use of behavioral indicators of a lapse in external attention. A common technique is to use the sustained attention to response (SART) task originally developed by Ian Robertson and his colleagues at Trinity College, DublinTrinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...
to explore deficits in executive control after lesions to the frontal lobe
Frontal lobe
The frontal lobe is an area in the brain of humans and other mammals, located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere and positioned anterior to the parietal lobe and superior and anterior to the temporal lobes...
.
Neuroscience
Mind-wandering is important in understanding how the brain produces what William JamesWilliam James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
called the train of thought
Train of thought
The train of thought, stream of thought, trail of thought, or chain of thought refers to the interconnection in the sequence of ideas expressed during a connected discourse or thought, as well as the sequence itself, especially in discussion how this sequence leads from one idea to another.When a...
and the stream of consciousness
Stream of consciousness (psychology)
Stream of consciousness refers to the flow of thoughts in the conscious mind. The full range of thoughts that one can be aware of can form the content of this stream, not just verbal thoughts...
. This aspect of mind-wandering research is focused on understanding how the brain generates the spontaneous and relatively unconstrained thoughts that are experienced when the mind wanders. One candidate neural mechanism for generating this aspect of experience is a network of regions in the frontal
Frontal lobe
The frontal lobe is an area in the brain of humans and other mammals, located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere and positioned anterior to the parietal lobe and superior and anterior to the temporal lobes...
and parietal
Parietal lobe
The parietal lobe is a part of the Brain positioned above the occipital lobe and behind the frontal lobe.The parietal lobe integrates sensory information from different modalities, particularly determining spatial sense and navigation. For example, it comprises somatosensory cortex and the...
cortex known as the default network
Default network
The default network is a network of brain regions that are active when the individual is not focused on the outside world and the brain is at wakeful rest. Also called the default mode network , default state network, or task-negative network , it is characterized by coherent neuronal oscillations...
. This network of regions is highly active even when subjects are resting with their eyes closed suggesting a role in generating spontaneous internal thoughts. One relatively controversial result is that periods of mind wandering are associated with increased activation in both the default and executive system a result that implies that mind-wandering may often be goal oriented.
In addition to neural models, computational models of consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
based on Bernard Baars' Global Workspace theory
Global Workspace Theory
Global Workspace Theory is a simple Cognitive architecture that has been developed to account qualitatively for a large set of matched pairs of conscious and unconscious processes. It was proposed by Bernard Baars...
suggest that mind-wandering, or "spontaneous thought" may involve competition between internally and externally generated activities attempting to gain access to a limited capacity central network.
See also
- Absent-mindednessAbsent-mindednessAbsent-mindedness is where a person shows inattentive or forgetful behaviour. It can have three different causes:# a low level of attention...
- Human reliabilityHuman reliabilityHuman reliability is related to the field of human factors engineering and ergonomics, and refers to the reliability of humans in fields such as manufacturing, transportation, the military, or medicine...
- Highway hypnosisHighway hypnosisHighway hypnosis, also popularly known as driving without attention mode or white line fever, is a mental state in which a person can drive a truck or automobile great distances, responding to external events in the expected manner with no recollection of having consciously done so...
- HyperfocusHyperfocusHyperfocus is an intense form of mental concentration or visualization that focuses consciousness on a narrow subject, separate from objective reality and onto subjective mental planes, daydreams, concepts, fiction, the imagination, and other objects of the mind...
(antonym)
External links
- American Psychological Society Symposium on Mind-Wandering.
- Oops Discovering the Wandering Mind
- MSNBC story on research into Mind Wandering
- A site for all things related to mind wandering
- Mind Wandering May Lead to a Bad Mood - LiveScienceLiveScienceLiveScience is a science news website run by TechMediaNetwork, who purchased it from Imaginova in 2009. Stories and editorial commentary are commonly syndicated to major news outlets, such as Yahoo!, MSNBC, AOL, and Fox News....