The link between mind wandering and learning in children

Cherry, Jessica; McCormack, Teresa; Jaroslawska, Agnieszka

doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105367

Cited by 11 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 42 publications

(66 reference statements)

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“…Besides, if students fail to pay attention to the classroom or what they are learning, this may impede their chances of acquiring important knowledge or skills. The frequency of mind wandering mediates the relation between children's ratings of topic interest and learning scores ( 9 ), so improving children's interest in what they have learned is a good choice to counteract the downsides of mind wandering.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mind wandering has been extensively studied in adults ( 6 – 8 ), but relatively limited research has been conducted in children ( 3 , 9 – 13 ). In fact, mind wandering has been shown to be reliably measured in children ( 9 ), and the study of its functions will help to understand the role it plays in children's cognitive and social development. In the present paper, we aim to investigate the characteristics of children's mind wandering by developing psychometric scales (Study 1a and Study 1b) and applying experience sampling method in the laboratory tasks (Study 2).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Development and validation of children's mind wandering scales

Cao

Huang

Song

et al. 2022

Front. Public Health

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IntroductionMind wandering is generally considered an endogenous mental state that arises spontaneously, which is one of the most common experiences of consciousness and typically occurs at a significant cost to mental health and behavioral performance. Previous studies have shown that mind wandering appears to be a stable trait and can be assessed reliably in adults. Surprisingly little, however, is known about how to measure the frequency of mind wandering in children, given that children can accurately introspect their experiences. The present studies aimed to develop the Frequency of Children's Mind Wandering Scale (CMWS-F) and the Context of Children's Mind Wandering Scale (CMWS-C) to assess the frequency of mind wandering and contexts in which mind wandering occurs for children aged 8 to 11 years.MethodsThe exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used to develop the CMWS-F and CMWS-C. To further assess the validity of the scales, we compared the scores in CMWS-F/CMWS-C and the frequencies of probe-caught mind wandering in the typical tasks.ResultsIn study 1a, the EFA (n = 292) and CFA (n = 346) showed that attentional failure and spontaneous thinking were the two main dimensions of CMWS-F. In study 1b, contexts about mind wandering in children could be divided into high-demand and low-demand contexts using EFA (n = 258) and CFA (n = 347). Study 2 showed moderate positive correlations between the frequencies of probe-caught mind wandering in the tasks and the scores in the scales.DiscussionThe results showed that scores on the two scales could predict the performance on the experimental tasks and further demonstrated empirical validity of the CMWS-F and CMWS-C scales. Taken together, the results of the current studies provided preliminary evidence for the validity and reliability of CMWS-F and CMWS-C in children, which can be used as a reference to balance its downsides and productive aspects of mind wandering.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Development and validation of children's mind wandering scales

Cao

Huang

Song

et al. 2022

Front. Public Health

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“…Identifying these maladaptive SGT patterns early in middle childhood might thus be crucial for early preventive treatments which could be particularly effective in this developmental phase, mitigating depression risk. A few studies have investigated mind wandering in children with and without psychopathologies using online thought sampling methods (i.e., Cherry, McCormack, & Graham, 2022; Frick, Asherson, & Brocki, 2020), but without focusing on specific SGT contents and their complex patterns. So far, no study has used network analytic approaches to SGTs to gain more precise insights into how maltreatment exposure affects thought patterns in children and how such patterns are associated with depression risk.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children with maltreatment exposure exhibit rumination‐like spontaneous thought patterns: association with symptoms of depression, subcallosal cingulate cortex thickness, and cortisol levels

Hoffmann

Linz

Steinbeis

et al. 2023

Child Psychology Psychiatry

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BackgroundChildhood maltreatment is associated with pervasive risk for depression. However, the immediate cognitive and neural mechanisms that mediate this risk during development are unknown. We here studied the impact of maltreatment on self‐generated thought (SGT) patterns and their association with depressive symptoms, subcallosal cingulate cortex (SCC) thickness, and cortisol levels in children.MethodsWe recruited 183 children aged 6–12 years, 96 of which were exposed to maltreatment. Children performed a mind wandering task to elicit SGTs. A subgroup of children underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging (N = 155) for SCC thickness analyses and saliva collection for quantification of free cortisol concentrations (N = 126) was collected. Using network analysis, we assessed thought networks and compared these networks between children with and without maltreatment exposure. Using multilevel analyses, we then tested the association between thought networks of children with maltreatment exposure with depressive symptoms, SCC thickness, and cortisol levels.ResultsChildren exposed to maltreatment generated fewer positively valenced thoughts. Network analysis revealed rumination‐like thought patterns in children with maltreatment exposure, which were associated with depressive symptoms, SCC thickness, and cortisol levels. Children with maltreatment exposure further exhibited decreased future‐self thought coupling, which was associated with depressive symptoms, while other‐related and past‐oriented thoughts had the greatest importance within the network.ConclusionsUsing a novel network analytic approach, we provide evidence that children exposed to maltreatment exhibit ruminative clustering of thoughts, which is associated with depressive symptoms and neurobiological correlates of depression. Our results provide a specific target for clinical translation to design early interventions for middle childhood. Targeting thought patterns in children with maltreatment exposure may be an effective strategy to effectively mitigate depression risk early in life.

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“…Strikingly, despite its obvious educational significance, only a relatively small number of studies have attempted to examine mind wandering in children (Cherry et al, 2022 ; Frick et al, 2020 ; Jones, 2019 ; Keulers & Jonkman, 2019 ; McCormack et al, 2019 ; Van den Driessche et al, 2017 ; Wilson et al, 2022 ; Ye et al, 2014 ; Zhang et al, 2015 ). The findings of these studies are promising, though, in that they suggest that it is possible to take meaningful measures of inattentive episodes in children as young as around 7 years.…”

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confidence: 99%

Listen up, kids! How mind wandering affects immediate and delayed memory in children

Cherry,

McCormack,

Graham

2023

Mem Cogn

Self Cite

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Mind wandering occurs when attention becomes disengaged from the here-and-now and directed toward internally generated thoughts; this is often associated with poorer performance on educationally significant tasks. In this study, 8- to 9-year-old children (N = 60) listened to audio stories embedded with intermittent thought probes that were used to determine if participants’ thoughts were on or off task. The key objective was to explore the impact of probe-caught mind wandering on both immediate and delayed memory retention. Children reported being off task approximately 24% of the time. Most inattention episodes were classified as task-unrelated thoughts (i.e., ‘pure’ instances of mind wandering, 9%) or attentional failures due to distractions (9%). Higher frequency of mind wandering was strongly associated with poorer memory recall, and task-unrelated thoughts strongly predicted how well children could recall components of the audio story both immediately after the task and after a 1-week delay. This study is the first to demonstrate the impact of mind wandering on delayed memory retention in children. Results suggest that exploring mind wandering in the foundational years of schooling could provide the necessary empirical foundation for the development of practical interventions geared toward detecting and refocusing lapses of attention in educational contexts.

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The link between mind wandering and learning in children

Cited by 11 publications

References 42 publications

Development and validation of children's mind wandering scales

Development and validation of children's mind wandering scales

Children with maltreatment exposure exhibit rumination‐like spontaneous thought patterns: association with symptoms of depression, subcallosal cingulate cortex thickness, and cortisol levels

Listen up, kids! How mind wandering affects immediate and delayed memory in children

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