The resource-availability model of distraction and mind-wandering

Taatgen, Niels; Vugt, Marieke K. van; Daamen, Jeroen; Katidioti, Ioanna; Huijser, Stefan; Borst, Jelmer P.

doi:10.1016/j.cogsys.2021.03.001

Cited by 19 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…3A). Although we cannot draw causal inferences from these data, our interpretation is that as individuals with greater updating skills exert lower effort to concentrate on a task, they have more memory resources available to engage in mentation unrelated to current task stimuli and thus allocate more resources to SITUTs and external distractions (cf., Taatgen et al, 2021). This interpretation is consistent with the global availability hypothesis (Smallwood, 2010), which states that mind wandering is a resource-demanding conscious experience that competes with task-related mentation for the limited space in working memory.…”

Section: Executive Functioning and Momentary Concentrationsupporting

confidence: 83%

The contribution of latent factors of executive functioning to mind wandering: an experience sampling study

et al. 2022

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Accumulating evidence suggests that individuals with greater executive resources spend less time mind wandering. Independent strands of research further suggest that this association depends on concentration and a guilty-dysphoric daydreaming style. However, it remains unclear whether this association is specific to particular features of executive functioning or certain operationalizations of mind wandering, including task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs, comprising external distractions and mind wandering) and stimulus-independent and task-unrelated thoughts (SITUTs, comprising mind wandering only). This study sought to clarify these associations by using confirmatory factor analysis to compute latent scores for distinct executive functions based on nine cognitive tasks and relating them to experience sampling reports of mind wandering. We expected that individuals with greater executive control (specifically updating) would show a stronger reduction in SITUTs as momentary concentration and guilty-dysphoric style increase. A bifactor model of the cognitive battery indicated a general factor (common executive functioning) and ancillary factors (updating and shifting). A significant interaction between updating and concentration on mind wandering was observed with mind wandering defined as TUTs, but not as SITUTs (N = 187). A post hoc analysis clarified this discrepancy by showing that as concentration increases, both external distractions and mind wandering decrease more strongly among people with greater updating. Moreover, common executive functioning predicted a more negative slope of guilty-dysphoric style on SITUTs, whereas updating and shifting predicted more positive slopes. The opposite slopes of these executive functions on daily life mind wandering may reflect a stability-flexibility trade-off between goal maintenance and goal replacement abilities.

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Section: Executive Functioning and Momentary Concentrationsupporting

confidence: 83%

The contribution of latent factors of executive functioning to mind wandering: an experience sampling study

et al. 2022

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“…Yet mind wandering -another cognitive activityhas a distinct lack of proposed cognitive models. Some work has proposed models of mind wandering, most notably within the ACT-R framework (Taatgen et al, 2021;van Vugt, van der Velde, & ESM-MERGE Investigators, 2018). These models are a promising step forward for the literature as they simultaneously generate predictions for sustained attention and self-report, which will lead to more integrated, unified explanations of cognition.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-reported mind wandering reflects executive control and selective attention

Hawkins¹,

Mittner²,

Forstmann³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Mind wandering is ubiquitous in everyday life and has pervasive and profound impacts on task-related performance. A range of psychological processes have been proposed to underlie these performance-related decrements, including failures of executive control, volatile information processing, and shortcomings in selective attention to critical task-relevant stimuli. Despite progress in the development of such theories, existing descriptive analyses have limited capacity to discriminate between the theories. We propose a cognitive-model based analysis that simultaneously explains self-reported mind wandering and task performance. We quantitatively compare six explanations of poor performance in the presence of mind wandering. The competing theories are distinguished by whether there is an impact on executive control and, if so, how executive control acts on information processing, and whether there is an impact on volatility of information processing. Across two experiments, we find quantitative evidence that mind wandering is associated with two latent factors. Our strongest conclusion is that executive control is impaired: increased mind wandering is associated with reduced ability to inhibit habitual response tendencies. Our nuanced conclusion is that executive control deficits manifest in reduced ability to selectively attend to the information value of rare but task-critical events.

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“…One unexpected result was that WMC was related to shorter resumption lags in the absence of an interruption. Since the task was very easy in the uninterrupted condition, fewer cognitive resources were presumably required than in the other types of trials, which may have led to more mind wandering in this condition (see Taatgen et al, 2021). Therefore, it could be hypothesized that participants with high WMC resumed the task faster when it required few mental resources because of their greater ability to block interference caused by their own thoughts.…”

Section: Working Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Resuming a Dynamic Task Following Increasingly Long Interruptions: The Role of Working Memory and Reconstruction

Labonté

Vachon

2021

Front. Psychol.

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Studies examining individual differences in interruption recovery have shown that higher working memory capacity (WMC) attenuated the negative impact of interruption length on resumption, at least in static contexts. In continuously evolving (or dynamic) situations, however, working memory may not be as central to the effective resumption of a task, especially in the case of long interruptions. One of the main theories of task interruption suggests that dynamic task resumption could depend on a reconstruction of the primary task context, that is, a visual examination of the post-interruption environment. To better define the role of working memory and reconstruction processes in interruption recovery, the current study examined the association between (1) dynamic task resumption following interruptions of various lengths and (2) two cognitive abilities chosen to operationalize the processes under study, namely, WMC and visual search capacity. Participants performed a multiple object tracking task which could be uninterrupted or interrupted for 5, 15, or 30 s while the hidden stimuli continued their trajectory. They also completed tasks measuring the two cognitive abilities of interest. The results revealed that WMC contributed to post-interruption accuracy regardless of interruption duration. On the contrary, visual search capacity was related to faster resumption in the 15-s and 30-s interruption conditions only. Those results show that working memory plays a preponderant role in resumption not only in static, but also in dynamic contexts. However, our study suggests that this mechanism must share the limelight with reconstruction following lengthy interruptions in dynamic settings.

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The resource-availability model of distraction and mind-wandering

Cited by 19 publications

References 57 publications

The contribution of latent factors of executive functioning to mind wandering: an experience sampling study

The contribution of latent factors of executive functioning to mind wandering: an experience sampling study

Self-reported mind wandering reflects executive control and selective attention

Resuming a Dynamic Task Following Increasingly Long Interruptions: The Role of Working Memory and Reconstruction

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