The wandering self: Tracking distracting self-generated thought in a cognitively demanding context

Huijser, Stefan; Vugt, Marieke K. van; Taatgen, Niels

doi:10.1016/j.concog.2017.12.004

Cited by 26 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…the baseline pupil diameter) is less clear. Some studies reported the tonic diameter of the pupil to be smaller during MW compared to on-task states (e.g., Grandchamp, Braboszcz, & Delorme, 2014;Huijser, van Vugt, & Taatgen, 2017;Mittner et al, 2014). Others reported the exact opposite, namely a larger tonic pupillary diameter during MW compared to on-task states (e.g., Franklin, et al, 2013;Smallwood et al, 2011Smallwood et al, , 2012.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of content and intensity of thought on behavioral and pupil changes during active mind wandering, off focus and on-task states

Jubera-Garcia¹,

gevers²,

Opstal³

2018

Preprint

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Mind wandering (MW) is a pervasive phenomenon that occurs very frequently regardless of the task. A content-based definition of MW holds that MW occurs when the content of thought switches from an on-going task and/or external stimulus-driven event to self-generated or inner thoughts. A recent account suggests that the transition between these different states of attention occurs via an off-focus state. Following this suggestion, previous work relating MW to pupil size might have lumped attentional states that are critically different from each (i.e., an off-focus and a MW state). In the current study, both behavior and pupil size were measured during a Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) to disentangle the content of thought (on-task or MW) from an off-focus state of mind. The off-focus state was operationalized by probing the intensity with which participants were on-task or MW. Results of two experiments showed that the behavioral and phasic pupillary responses were sensitive to changes related to the content of thought. Behavioral responses were furthermore related to the intensity of the thought. However, no clear relation between the different attentional states and the tonic pupillary diameter was found suggesting it is an unreliable proxy for MW.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of content and intensity of thought on behavioral and pupil changes during active mind wandering, off focus and on-task states

Jubera-Garcia¹,

gevers²,

Opstal³

2018

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…On the other hand, however, the relation between MW and the tonic pupillary diameter (i.e., the baseline pupil diameter) is less clear. Some studies have reported the tonic diameter of the pupil to be smaller during MW than during on-task states (e.g., Grandchamp, Braboszcz, & Delorme, 2014;Huijser, van Vugt, & Taatgen, 2018;Mittner et al, 2014). Others have reported the exact opposite-namely, a larger tonic pupillary diameter during MW than during on-task states (e.g., Franklin, Broadway, Mrazek, Smallwood, & Schooler, 2013;Smallwood et al, 2012;Smallwood et al, 2011).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of content and intensity of thought on behavioral and pupil changes during active mind-wandering, off-focus, and on-task states

Jubera-Garcia

Gevers

Opstal

2019

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Mind wandering (MW) is a pervasive phenomenon that occurs very frequently, regardless of the task. A content-based definition of MW holds that it occurs when the content of thought switches from an ongoing task and/or an external stimulus-driven event to self-generated or inner thoughts. A recent account suggests that the transition between these different states of attention occurs via an off-focus state. Following this suggestion, previous work relating MW to pupil size might have lumped attentional states that are critically different from each (i.e., off-focus and MW states). In the present study, both behavior and pupil size were measured during a sustained-attention-to-response task, to disentangle the content of thought (on task or MW) from an off-focus state of mind. The off-focus state was operationalized by probing the intensity with which participants were on task or mind-wandering. The results of two experiments showed that the behavioral and phasic pupillary responses were sensitive to changes related to the content of thought. The behavioral responses were furthermore related to the intensity of the thought. However, no clear relation between the different attentional states and tonic pupillary diameter was found, suggesting that it is an unreliable proxy for MW. Keywords Attention. Mind wandering. Off-focus state. SART. Pupil size According to recent research, we spend about 20% to 50% of our time awake with our thoughts away from what we are currently doing (Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010; Seli et al., 2018). This phenomenon, generally labeled mind wandering (MW), is usually investigated with experience sampling that requires participants to report on their subjective ongoing experience while completing a task. An often-used experiencesampling method is the probe-caught method (Smallwood & Schooler, 2006), in which a probe is presented at random points in time that asks participants about their experience just prior to the probe. An example of such a thought probe is the following, "Prior to this question, were your thoughts on the task or on something else?," which examines the metacognitive process of attention and has already revealed many interesting insights into MW (for reviews, see Christoff,

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“…More directly, Huijser, Van Vugt, and Taatgen (2018) found that orienting subjects to selfrelevance of descriptor words during a memory task increased TUTs relative to orienting to size of object words, and Baird et al's (2011) open-ended probes elicited self-related thoughts two-thirds of the time during a reaction-time task. Clinical research finds that, although patients with borderline personality disorder report similar overall ratings of selfand other-relevant TUTs as controls, they are more likely to report occasional extreme ratings on those dimensions, particularly for negative thoughts (Kanske et al, 2016).…”

Section: Self-relevancementioning

confidence: 97%

An Exploratory Analysis of Individual Differences in Mind Wandering Content and Consistency

Welhaf¹,

Smeekens²,

Silvia³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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We conducted an exploratory study of adult individual differences in the contents of mind-wandering experiences and in the moment-to-moment consistency of that off-task thought content within tasks. This secondary analysis of a published dataset (Kane et al., 2016) examined the content-based thought reports that 472-541 undergraduates made within five probed tasks across three sessions, and tested whether executive-control abilities (working memory capacity [WMC], attention-restraint ability), or personality dimensions of schizotypy (positive, disorganized, negative), predicted particular contents of task-unrelated thought (TUT) or the (in)stability of TUT content across successive thought reports. Latent variable models indicated trait-like consistency in both TUT content and short-term TUT content stability across tasks and sessions; some subjects mind-wandered about some things more than others, and some subjects were more temporally consistent in their TUT content than were others. Higher executive control was associated with more evaluative thoughts about task performance and fewer thoughts about current physical or emotional states; higher positive and disorganized schizotypy was associated with more fantastical daydream and worry content. Contrary to expectations, executive ability correlated positively with TUT instability: higher-ability students had more shifting and varied TUT content within a task. Post hoc analysis suggested that better executive control predicted inconsistent TUT content because it also predicted shorter streaks of mind-wandering; tuning back in to task-related thought may decouple trains of off-task thought and afford novel, spontaneous, or cued thought content. [Data, sample analysis scripts and output, and manuscript preprint are available via the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/guhw7/.]

show abstract

The wandering self: Tracking distracting self-generated thought in a cognitively demanding context

Cited by 26 publications

References 51 publications

Influence of content and intensity of thought on behavioral and pupil changes during active mind wandering, off focus and on-task states

Influence of content and intensity of thought on behavioral and pupil changes during active mind wandering, off focus and on-task states

Influence of content and intensity of thought on behavioral and pupil changes during active mind-wandering, off-focus, and on-task states

An Exploratory Analysis of Individual Differences in Mind Wandering Content and Consistency

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