Mind-wandering, cognition, and performance: A theory-driven meta-analysis of attention regulation.

Abstract

The current meta-analysis accumulates empirical findings on the phenomenon of mind-wandering, integrating and interpreting findings in light of psychological theories of cognitive resource allocation. Cognitive resource theory emphasizes both individual differences in attentional resources and task demands together to predict variance in task performance. This theory motivated our conceptual and meta-analysis framework by introducing moderators indicative of task-demand to predict who is more likely to mind-wander under what conditions, and to predict when mind-wandering and task-related thought are more (or less) predictive of task performance. Predictions were tested via a random-effects meta-analysis of correlations obtained from normal adult samples (k = 88) based on measurement of specified episodes of off-task and/or on-task thought frequency and task performance. Results demonstrated that people with fewer cognitive resources tend to engage in more mind-wandering, whereas those with more cognitive resources are more likely to engage in task-related thought. Addressing predictions of resource theory, we found that greater time-on-task-although not greater task complexity-tended to strengthen the negative relation between cognitive resources and mind-wandering. Additionally, increases in mind-wandering were generally associated with decreases in task performance, whereas increases in task-related thought were associated with increased performance. Further supporting resource theory, the negative relation between mind-wandering and performance was more pronounced for more complex tasks, though not longer tasks. Complementarily, the positive association between task-related thought and performance was stronger for more complex tasks and for longer tasks. We conclude by discussing implications and future research directions for mind-wandering as a construct of interest in psychological research.

An automated behavioral measure of mind wandering during computerized reading

“…Numerous studies have investigated mind wandering across a range of tasks and have found that it occurs anywhere between 20%-50% of the time (Kane et al, 2007;Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010;Schooler, Reichle, & Halpern, 2004;Smilek, Carriere, & Cheyne, 2010). Multiple studies (Feng, D'Mello, & Graesser, 2013;Robertson, Manly, Andrade, Baddeley, & Yiend, 1997;Seibert & Ellis, 1991;Smallwood et al, 2004;Smallwood, Fishman, & Schooler, 2007;Smallwood & Schooler, 2006), including a recent meta-analysis of 49 research reports (Randall, Oswald, & Beier, 2014), have indicated that mind wandering during a task is negatively related with task performance. For instance, mind wandering is negatively correlated with text comprehension, partly because textual information is not integrated with the mental model of the text when the reader is mind wandering (Feng et al, 2013;Smallwood, 2011).…”

“…To establish convergent validity, we correlated the proportion of cases that the gaze-based detector denoted as mind wandering with self-reported mind-wandering proportions. Predictive validity was obtained by correlating gaze-based mind wandering with text comprehension scores, which has been shown to be negatively related with self-reported wandering Faber, Mills, Kopp, & D'Mello, 2016;Feng et al, 2013;Randall et al, 2014;Unsworth & McMillan, 2013).…”

Working Memory Capacity Offers Resistance to Mind‐Wandering and External Distraction in a Context‐Specific Manner

“…It should be noted that although the magnitude of the correlation between working memory capacity and mind-wandering in the noise condition is small and not significant (r = 0.06), a recent review(Randall, Oswald, & Beier, 2014) indicated a point estimate of ρ = À0.14 between cognitive abilities and mind-wandering. So the lack of a correlation here is possibly due to low power to detect this small effect.…”

Automatic gaze-based user-independent detection of mind wandering during computerized reading

“…It has been shown that mind wandering results in increased error rates during signal detection tasks (Robertson et al 1997;Smallwood et al 2004), lower recall during memory tasks (Seibert and Ellis 1991;Smallwood and Schooler 2006), and poor comprehension during reading tasks (Feng et al 2013;Smallwood et al 2007). In addition, a recent meta-analysis of 49 independent samples found that mind wandering was consistently negatively correlated with performance across a range of tasks (Randall et al 2014). Based on this research, it is evident that performance on tasks that require attentional focus can be hindered by off task thoughts (i.e., mind wandering).…”