Meta-awareness, perceptual decoupling and the wandering mind

Schooler, Jonathan W.; Smallwood, Jonathan; Christoff, Kalina; Handy, Todd C.; Reichle, Erik D.; Sayette, Michael A.

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2011.05.006

Cited by 575 publications

(736 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…Mind wandering has been defined as a state of "perceptual decoupling," or disengagement of attention from perception (37). Our study describes the relationship between mind wandering and perceptual decoupling from pain.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Mind wandering away from pain dynamically engages antinociceptive and default mode brain networks

Kucyi

Salomons

Davis

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

347

333

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Human minds often wander away from their immediate sensory environment. It remains unknown whether such mind wandering is unsystematic or whether it lawfully relates to an individual's tendency to attend to salient stimuli such as pain and their associated brain structure/function. Studies of pain-cognition interactions typically examine explicit manipulation of attention rather than spontaneous mind wandering. Here we sought to better represent natural fluctuations in pain in daily life, so we assessed behavioral and neural aspects of spontaneous disengagement of attention from pain. We found that an individual's tendency to attend to pain related to the disruptive effect of pain on his or her cognitive task performance. Next, we linked behavioral findings to neural networks with strikingly convergent evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging during pain coupled with thought probes of mind wandering, dynamic resting state activity fluctuations, and diffusion MRI. We found that (i) pain-induced default mode network (DMN) deactivations were attenuated during mind wandering away from pain; (ii) functional connectivity fluctuations between the DMN and periaqueductal gray (PAG) dynamically tracked spontaneous attention away from pain; and (iii) across individuals, stronger PAG-DMN structural connectivity and more dynamic resting state PAG-DMN functional connectivity were associated with the tendency to mind wander away from pain. These data demonstrate that individual tendencies to mind wander away from pain, in the absence of explicit manipulation, are subserved by functional and structural connectivity within and between default mode and antinociceptive descending modulation networks.pain modulation | salience network | stimulus-independent thought | ventral attention network | experience sampling H umans spend nearly half their time on thoughts unrelated to their present sensory environment (1), a phenomenon referred to as "mind wandering." These thoughts can persist even when engaged in salient and challenging everyday activities (1, 2), such as driving a car through traffic. In such situations, mind wandering can be deleterious. However, in some situations, mind wandering may be beneficial, such as when an individual needs to cope with pain.Cognitive manipulations, such as alterations of attention/distraction (3-5), placebo effects (6-9), changing expectations, and other strategies (10), have shown some efficacy in altering perceptions and neural responses elicited by painful stimuli. It is generally assumed that these effects involve enhanced endogenous analgesic activity within the descending pain modulatory system [e.g., prefrontal cortex, perigenual cingulate cortex, periaqueductal gray (PAG), and rostroventral medulla] and decreased activity in regions that support the salience of pain [e.g., insula and midcingulate cortex (MCC)] (10).A crucial assumption in previous studies of explicit pain manipulation is that there is a static, invariant neurocognitive state during incoming nociceptive activit...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…For nonpain modalities, neural activity for perceptual decoupling has been associated with increased DMN and executive control network activation and decreased activation in sensory cortices (37). DMN activation has been linked to mind wandering/internal mentation in experience sampling studies (17,19,21).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mind wandering away from pain dynamically engages antinociceptive and default mode brain networks

Kucyi

Salomons

Davis

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

347

333

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…One popular theory of mind wandering is the perceptual decoupling hypothesis. Several studies have shown that mind wandering results in a loss of sensitivity to sensory stimuli [11,49] and that the DMN is involved in this process [10]. The model we propose here can be interpreted as a neural implementation of the perceptual decoupling hypothesis, where coupling with the visual and saliency networks is reduced in favor of the networks involved in mind wandering.…”

Section: The Tripartite Model Describes Mind Wandering (But Not the Tmentioning

confidence: 89%

A Neural Model of Mind Wandering

Mittner¹,

Hawkins²,

Boekel³

et al. 2017

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

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“…Conversely, we also suggest that mindfully remaining aware that one's experiences are simply mental events may support the successful training and regulation of attention. Becoming distracted from focused attention typically happens when mind wandering occurs, namely, when people have thoughts about task-irrelevant stimuli (e.g., Mrazek et al, 2011;Schooler et al, 2011;Smallwood & Schooler, 2006). Such distractions include, for example, thoughts about an upcoming event (e.g., the dinner party on Saturday), alternatives to a present event (e.g., having chocolate cake rather than working), or cravings for some appetitive object (e.g., a sweet snack; Sayette, Schooler, & Reichle, 2010).…”

Section: Relations Between the Attention And Perspective Components Omentioning

confidence: 99%

The benefits of simply observing: Mindful attention modulates the link between motivation and behavior.

Papies¹,

Pronk²,

Keesman³

et al. 2015

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

165

182

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Mindful attention, a central component of mindfulness meditation, can be conceived as becoming aware of one's thoughts and experiences, and being able to observe them as transient mental events. Here, we present a series of studies demonstrating the effects of applying this meta-cognitive perspective to one's spontaneous reward responses when encountering attractive stimuli. Taking a grounded cognition perspective, we argue that reward simulations in response to attractive stimuli contribute to appetitive behavior, and that motivational states and traits enhance these simulations. Directing mindful attention at these

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Meta-awareness, perceptual decoupling and the wandering mind

Cited by 575 publications

References 71 publications

Mind wandering away from pain dynamically engages antinociceptive and default mode brain networks

Mind wandering away from pain dynamically engages antinociceptive and default mode brain networks

A Neural Model of Mind Wandering

The benefits of simply observing: Mindful attention modulates the link between motivation and behavior.

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