Mind Wandering and the Adaptive Control of Attentional Resources

Abstract

Mind wandering is a natural, transient state wherein our neurocognitive systems become temporarily decoupled from the external sensory environment as our thoughts drift away from the current task at hand. Yet despite the ubiquity of mind wandering in everyday human life, we rarely seem impaired in our ability to adaptively respond to the external environment when mind wandering. This suggests that despite widespread neurocognitive decoupling during mind wandering states, we may nevertheless retain some capacity to attentionally monitor external events. But what specific capacities? In Experiment 1, using traditional performance measures, we found that both volitional and automatic forms of visual-spatial attentional orienting were significantly attenuated when mind wandering. In Experiment 2, however, ERPs revealed that, during mind wandering states, there was a relative preservation of sensitivity to deviant or unexpected sensory events, as measured via the auditory N1 component. Taken together, our findings suggest that, although some selective attentional processes may be subject to down-regulation during mind wandering, we may adaptively compensate for these neurocognitively decoupled states by maintaining automatic deviance-detection functions.

Ode to positive constructive daydreaming

“…In a study that examines the limits of perceptual decoupling, Kam et al (2013) found that some attentional functions are maintained during mind wandering, most notably detection of unexpected changes in the environment.…”

Visual asymmetry revisited: Mind wandering preferentially disrupts processing in the left visual field

“…The block duration itself was randomly varied between 30 and 90 s in order to (1) minimize predictability of block completion and (2) maximize variability of attentional state at the time of block completion (c.f. Kam et al, 2011Kam et al, , 2012Kam et al, , 2013Smallwood et al, 2008).…”

“…These measures were all taken relative to a À200 to 0 ms pre-stimulus baseline. The ERP waveforms were based on averaging together the EEG epochs for the six LVF and RVF probes separately that were presented in the 12 s preceding each attention report (on-task vs. mind wandering) -a time window we have used previously with ERP data (e.g., Kam et al, 2011Kam et al, , 2012Kam et al, , 2013Smallwood et al, 2008). Our analyses were based on the assumption that the 12 s prior to each report would, on average, reliably capture the given attentional state.…”

“…The absence of attentional state modulations in the behavioral measure highlights the importance and utility of ERP measures in examining the underlying neural mechanism that may not manifest as differences in manual reaction times. In addition, other EPR studies have that mind wandering periods are associated with disruptions in a range of cognitive responses, including stimulus evaluation and categorization (Barron, Riby, Greer, & Smallwood, 2011;O'Connell et al, 2009;Smallwood, Beach, Schooler, & Handy, 2008), affective processing (Kam, Xu, & Handy, 2014), and performance monitoring (Kam, Dao, Stanciulescu, Tildesley, & Handy, 2013). Of relevance, given that visual stimuli used in these previous studies have been presented along the midline of the visual field (e.g., Barron et al, 2011;Kam et al, 2011;Smallwood et al, 2008), to what extent would we observe a similar attenuation of sensory gain to task-irrelevant visual stimuli across both hemifields?…”

Decreasing propensity to mind-wander with transcranial direct current stimulation

“…Mind wandering is related to adaptive functions such as planning, creativity, and a coherent sense of self (Andrews-Hanna, Smallwood, and Spreng 2014). However, mind wandering, also referred to as task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs), causes intermittent shifts of attention from the task at hand and dampens sensory information processing (Baird et al 2014; Barron et al 2011), resulting in poor task performance (Kam, Dao, and Stanciulescu 2013;Kane and McVay 2012), accidents (He et al 2011), and maladaptation (e.g., poor lesson comprehension; Smallwood, Fishman, and Schooler 2007). Thus, regulating mind wandering propensity is quite important.…”