Dimensions of Thought Flow in Everyday Life

Abstract

To what extent are three criteria of daydreaming–as thought that is fanciful, stimulus-independent, or undirected–equivalent? How are these properties of thought flow distributed during everyday activity? Students ( N = 29) carrying a beeper described properties of their consciousness on a total of 1425 occasions by means of a Thought-Sampling Questionnaire, anxiety and depression measures, and activity report forms. Intrasubject analyses of thought variables identified eight orthogonal factors, including Visual Modality, Auditory Modality, Operantness (directedness), Attentiveness to External Stimulation, Controllability, Strangeness (fancifulness/bizarreness), Past Time Orientation, and Future Time Orientation. Most thought samples contained some interior monologue, largely independent of other variables. Thought properties were uncorrelated with affective variables, frustration of goals, and impulses to drink alcohol. Factors for individual differences differed sharply from the intrasubject results, with a single undifferentiated Vividness factor and controllability no longer a separate factor. The visual modality predominates for most individuals, about a third of thought is on the average predominantly undirected, an uncorrelated third is stimulus-independent, and about a quarter of thoughts contain at least traces of dream-like elements.

Experience sampling during fMRI reveals default network and executive system contributions to mind wandering

“…However, the finding that both the anterior PFC, a region previously linked to multitasking (34)(35)(36)(37), and the dorsal ACC, a region closely linked to conflict detection (32,(38)(39)(40), were more active when subjects were unaware of their own mind wandering, suggests that the third possibility may be most likely, namely, that executive recruitment reflects, at least in part, the presence of conflict inherent to the content of mind wandering. This possibility would also be consistent with observations that the content of mind wandering is closely related to current personal concerns and unresolved matters (41)(42)(43).…”

Counting the cost of an absent mind: Mind wandering as an underrecognized influence on educational performance

“…The processing of memories or goals while decoupled from the task environment could be important in the process of building bridges between different knowledge domains or elaborating upon already-learned information. Because the content of mind wandering is often in our immediate past or present (Klinger & Cox, 1987/1988, these episodes could act to keep us in touch with our hopes and desires. Similarly, the sense of spontaneity associated with mind wandering could readily serve a prospective memory function, or even contribute to the brief moments of insight (Schooler, Falshore, & Fiore, 1995) that are essential in problem solving (Smallwood & Schooler, 2006).…”

“…Research on mind wandering is still in its infancy, and although we can be sure that it occurs outside the laboratory (Klinger & Cox, 1987/1988, no study has directly assessed mind wandering in the classroom. To do so, we must develop measures that can meet the specific requirements of research in a classroom environment.…”

Thinking about it: thoughts about health and valuing QALYs

“…about 20% of the time spent reading is spent thinking about other things (Schooler et al, 2005) and this rises to 50% for more mundane activities (Smallwood et al, 2004). Generally speaking, positive (negative) thoughts result in higher (lower) experienced utility (Watkins, 2008) and returning to the same repetitive thoughts, such that they become intrusive, is associated with lower experienced utility (Klinger and Cox, 1987). At the extreme, constant rumination has seriously debilitating effects on mental health (Brewin, 1998).…”