Influence of content and intensity of thought on behavioral and pupil changes during active mind-wandering, off-focus, and on-task states

Jubera-Garcia, Esperanza; Gevers, Wim; Opstal, Filip Van

doi:10.3758/s13414-019-01865-7

Cited by 21 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 39 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…We believe that the answer will strongly depend on two main related factors, namely (i) the operational definition of MW and its characteristics (ii) the characteristics of the main task. In this sense, we agree with Konishi et al [52; see also 51,64], suggesting that the content of MW and the context in which it emerges are determinant for its relation to other neurocognitive variables (including pupil size).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

A closer look at the timecourse of mind wandering: Pupillary responses and behaviour

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mind wandering (MW) refers to the shift of attention away from a primary task and/or external environment towards thoughts unrelated to the task. Recent evidence has shown that pupillometry can be used as an objective marker of the onset and maintenance of externally-driven MW episodes. In the present study we aimed to further investigate pupillary changes associated with the onset and duration of self-reported MW episodes. We used a modified version of the joint behavioural-pupillometry paradigm we recently introduced. Participants were asked to perform a monotonous vigilance task which was intermixed with task-irrelevant cue-phrases (visually presented verbal cues); they were instructed to interrupt the task whenever a thought came to mind (self-caught method) and to indicate the trigger of their thought, if any. We found systematic pupil dilation after the presentation of verbal cues reported to have triggered MW, compared with other verbal cues presented during a supposedly on-task period (i.e., the period immediately following the resuming of the task after a self-caught interruption and MW report). These results confirm that pupil diameter is sensitive to the changes associated with the onset of MW and its unfolding over time. Moreover, by computing the latency between the trigger presentation and the task interruption (self-catch), we could also estimate the duration of MW episodes triggered by verbal cues. However, a high variability was found, implying very large inter-event variability, which could not be explained by any of the MW properties we acquired (including: temporal focus, specificity, emotional valence). Our behavioural and pupillometry findings stress the need for objective measures about the temporal unfolding of MW (while most studies focus on arbitrary time-window preceding self-reports of MW).

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

A closer look at the timecourse of mind wandering: Pupillary responses and behaviour

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We believe that the answers to these questions will always depend on the exact characteristics of the main task and of the MW episodes. In this sense, we agree with Konishi et al (32; see also 31,45), suggesting that the content of MW and the context in which it emerges are determinant for its relation to other neurocognitive variables (including pupil size). Therefore, it is impossible, a priori, to predict the direction of pupil modulations for a new experimental setting.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

A closer look at the timecourse of mind wandering: pupillary responses and behaviour

Pelagatti

Binda

Vannucci

2019

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

AbstractMind wandering (MW) refers to the shift of attention away from a primary task and/or external environment towards thoughts unrelated to the task. Recent evidence has shown that pupillometry can be used as an objective marker of the onset and maintenance of externally-driven MW episodes. In the present study we aimed to further investigate pupillary changes associated with the onset and duration of self-reported MW episodes.We used a modified version of the joint behavioural-pupillometry paradigm we recently introduced. Participants were asked to perform a monotonous vigilance task which was intermixed with task-irrelevant cue-phrases (visually presented verbal cues); they were instructed to interrupt the task whenever a thought came to mind (self-caught method) and to indicate the trigger of their thought, if any. We found systematic pupil dilation after the presentation of verbal cues reported to have triggered MW, compared with other verbal cues presented during a supposedly on-task period (i.e., the period immediately following the resuming of the task after a self-caught interruption and MW report). These results confirm that pupil diameter is sensitive to the changes associated with the onset of MW and its unfolding over time.Moreover, by computing the latency between the trigger presentation and the task interruption (self-catch), we could also estimate the duration of MW episodes triggered by verbal cues. However, a high variability was found, implying very large inter-event variability, which could not be explained by any of the MW properties we acquired (including: temporal focus, specificity, emotional valence). Our behavioural and pupillometry findings stress the need for objective measures about the temporal unfolding of MW (while most studies focus on arbitrary time-window preceding self-reports of MW).

show abstract

“…With alpha = .05 and a hypothesized correlation of .3 among within-subject factors, simulation results show that a sample size of 40 can achieve over 80% power for both the interaction between attention and distractor presence as well as the post-hoc tests. The planned sample size is also comparable to previous studies examining the relationship between pupil size, task performance, and MW (e.g., Franklin, 2013;Jubera-García et al, 2019;Konishi et al, 2017;Smallwood et al, 2011;Unsworth & Robison, 2016.…”

Section: Participantssupporting

confidence: 67%

“…Previous studies examining the relationship between task-evoked pupillary response (phasic pupil size) found that MW was consistently associated with smaller task-evoked responses (e.g., Jubera-García et al, 2019;Mittner et al, 2014;Unsworth & Robison, 2016). An important difference between our task and theirs is that our task involves making overt and fast eye movements away from the screen center, which may occlude any effects on pupil dilation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Mind-Wandering: What Can We Learn from Eye Movements?

Zhang¹

2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mind-wandering (MW) is ubiquitous and is associated with reduced performance across a wide range of tasks. Recent studies have shown that MW can be related to changes in gaze parameters. In this dissertation, I explored the link between eye movements and MW in three different contexts that involve complex cognitive processing: visual search, scene perception, and reading comprehension. Study 1 examined how MW affects visual search performance, particularly the ability to suppress salient but irrelevant distractors during visual search. Study 2 used a scene encoding task to study how MW affects how eye movements change over time and their relationship with scene content. Study 3 examined how MW affects readers’ ability to detect semantic incongruities in the text and make necessary revisions of their understanding as they read jokes. All three studies showed that MW was associated with decreased task performance at the behavioral level (e.g., response time, recognition, and recall). Eye-tracking further showed that these behavioral costs can be traced to deficits in specific cognitive processes. The final chapter of this dissertation explored whether there are context-independent eye movement features of MW. MW manifests itself in different ways depending on task characteristics. In tasks that require extensive sampling of the stimuli (e.g., reading and scene viewing), MW was related to a global reduction in visual processing. But this was not the case for the search task, which involved speeded, simple visual processing. MW was instead related to increased looking time on the target after it was already located. MW affects the coupling between cognitive efforts and task demands, but the nature of this decoupling depends on the specific features of particular tasks.

show abstract

Influence of content and intensity of thought on behavioral and pupil changes during active mind-wandering, off-focus, and on-task states

Cited by 21 publications

References 39 publications

A closer look at the timecourse of mind wandering: Pupillary responses and behaviour

A closer look at the timecourse of mind wandering: Pupillary responses and behaviour

A closer look at the timecourse of mind wandering: pupillary responses and behaviour

Mind-Wandering: What Can We Learn from Eye Movements?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About