Detecting Mind Wandering: An Objective Method via Simultaneous Control of Respiration and Fingertip Pressure

Abstract

Mind wandering happens when one train of thought, related to a current undertaking, is interrupted by unrelated thoughts. The detection and evaluation of mind wandering can greatly help in understanding the attention control mechanism during certain focal tasks. Subjective assessments such as random thought-probe and spontaneous self-report are the ways previous research has assessed mind wandering. Here we propose a task in which participants are asked to simultaneously control respiration and fingertip pressure. They are instructed to click a force sensor at the exact moment of inhalation and exhalation of their respiration. The temporal synchronization between the respiratory signals and the fingertip force pulses offers an objective index to detect mind wandering. Twelve participants engaged in the proposed task in which self-reports of mind wandering are compared with the proposed objective index. The results show that the participants reported significantly more mind-wandering episodes during the trials with a larger temporal synchronization than they did during those trials with a smaller temporal synchronization. The findings suggest that the temporal synchronization might be used as an objective marker of mind wandering in attention training and exploration of the attention control mechanism.

Enhancing Attention by Synchronizing Respiration and Fingertip Pressure: A Pilot Study Using Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

“…Our previous study has validated that the synchronization between the force and respiration signals can be used as an objective marker of attentional state (Zheng et al, 2019). Thus, another advantage of the HAM paradigm might lie in the possibility of real-time monitoring of the attentional state.…”

“…Because deep breathing practice was proved to be beneficial for a variety of cognitive functions and widely used in meditation, participants were instructed to keep a constant, slow, and deep diaphragmatic breathing during the task (Brown and Gerbarg, 2009). More specific requirements for breathing were described in our previous study (Zheng et al, 2019).…”

Detection of mind wandering using EEG: Within and across individuals

“…Previous successful attempts of mind wandering detection primarily used behavioral measures such as eye tracking and pupillometry [19][20][21][22] or task-related measures, such as driving performance [23,24] and reading time [25]. Studies have also used physiological measures such as heart rate and skin conductance [26] as well as synchronization between respiration and sensory pressure [27]. These findings serve to highlight the value of using behavioral and physiological measures to detect mind wandering at above chance levels.…”

Employing a Wearable Eye-tracker to Observe Mind-wandering in Dynamic Stimuli

“…Pressure sensors [7], Electroencephalogram (EEG) and eye-trackers are the most promising technologies in terms of their accuracy. However, each technology has its own merits and drawbacks, as summarised in Table 1.…”