Letting go of the present: Mind-wandering is associated with reduced delay discounting

Smallwood, Jonathan; Ruby, Florence J. M.; Singer, Tania

doi:10.1016/j.concog.2012.10.007

Cited by 126 publications

(105 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Our results raise the intriguing (though speculative) possibility that the efficiency of glucose metabolism and the capacity for self-generated thought might underlie improved selfcontrol by diverting attention from proximal stimuli and actions linked to more immediate gratification. Current research suggests that self-generated thought is implicated in skills that would be important in maintaining a healthy diet, such as delaying gratification [5] and that this is mediated by the integrity of grey matter in the medial prefrontal cortex [33]. Our data is also consistent with the possibility that problems in mental simulation could lead to poor lifestyle choices, which in turn could further impair glucose metabolism.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

“…In light of this result we suspect that the low frequency of self-generated thought in older age arises from other types of deficit that could impair the capacity to simulate using episodic memory, reduce cognitive control or temper an older individual's motivation to engage in the experience. Clearly further work in an older population is warranted given that selfgenerated thoughts can be important in making future plans [6], generating creative solutions [4] and is a marker of patient decision making [5].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These processes are important in the human capacity to consider events from the past and anticipation of events that may take place in the future which together affords individuals the chance to engage in mental time travel [3]. Although it can disrupt ongoing tasks, when self-generated thought occurs under benign conditions it can be associated with important capacities such as creativity [4], delaying gratification [5], and planning [6]. A common way to examine self-generated experiences is to ask participants to perform a task under laboratory conditions and to examine the occurrence and content of self-generated thoughts that are unrelated to the task being performed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Engaging in self-generated thought is a complex cognitive act that depends on several component processes [5,7]. Episodic memory is important in providing the mental content of self-generated thought [8] and this allows individuals to mentally simulate events unrelated to perceptual input.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Episodic memory is important in providing the mental content of self-generated thought [8] and this allows individuals to mentally simulate events unrelated to perceptual input. Control processes (such as working memory capacity) are also thought to be important in buffering and sustaining the internal train of thought over time [5,9]. Given its complexity, the neural basis of selfgenerated thought has been found to engage a wide network of brain regions including medial and lateral regions of the frontal cortex, lateral regions of the parietal cortex, areas of cingulate cortex and parts of the medial temporal lobe [10,11,12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Food for Thought: the Efficiency of Glucose Metabolism Predicts the Self-generation of Temporally Distant Cognition

Riby¹,

Orme²,

Greer³

et al. 2014

RPBS

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The generation of thought independent of environmental input occupies almost half of mental life and is important for skills such as creativity and planning. To understand how this ubiquitous cognitive process relates to the brain's 'energy budget', a cross-sectional study is carried out to examine how the capacity for mental time travel relates to the efficiency with which adults metabolize glucose, the brain's primary source of fuel. On day 1 the ability of a group of 36 younger and 36 older individuals to metabolize glucose was assessed using the gold standard two-hour glucose tolerance test. Twenty-four hours later, the same group of participants returned to the laboratory to perform a non-demanding choice reaction time task during which experience sampling was used to assess the frequency with which they generated thoughts that were unrelated to the here and now. Analysis indicated that younger individuals who were the most efficient at metabolizing glucose exhibited mental time travel that spanned longer time periods. Given the importance of self-generated thought in daily life these results suggest that the capacity to mentally simulate events not present in the immediate environment is highly dependent on efficient glucose metabolism.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Food for Thought: the Efficiency of Glucose Metabolism Predicts the Self-generation of Temporally Distant Cognition

Riby¹,

Orme²,

Greer³

et al. 2014

RPBS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Digital daydreaming: Introducing the spontaneous smartphone checking scale

Berntsen

Hoyle

Møller

et al. 2023

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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Smartphones are a ubiquitous part of many people's lives, but little is known about their impact on everyday thought processes. Here we introduce the spontaneous smartphone checking scale (SSCS)—which measures the tendency to direct attention toward one's smartphone, unpreceded by external prompts (e.g., notifications, or alerts) and with no specific conscious goal in mind, as a parallel to mind‐wandering directed toward internal thoughts. The SSCS showed good psychometric properties and construct validity. It separated from measures of daydreaming and mind‐wandering by not loading on dimensions related to self‐consciousness, reflection, and rumination, but instead loading highly on a factor associated with other aspects of digital communication and concerns about public appearance on social media. This suggests that spontaneous smartphone checking serves different mental and social functions than internally generated spontaneous thought processes. We discuss possible long‐term effects of spontaneous smartphone checking taking up time for internally generated spontaneous thoughts.

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Neural correlates of personal goal processing during episodic future thinking and mind-wandering: An ALE meta-analysis

2015

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The ability to imagine the future is a complex mental faculty that depends on an ensemble of cognitive processes supported by an extended set of brain regions. Our aim here was to shed light on one key component of future thinking-personal goal processing-and to determine its neural correlates during both directed and spontaneous forms of thoughts. To address this question, we performed separate ALE meta-analyses of neuroimaging studies of episodic future thinking, mind-wandering, and personal goal processing, and then investigated the commonalities and differences in brain activity between these three domains. The results showed that the three domains activated a common set of brain regions within the default network and, most notably, the medial prefrontal cortex. This finding suggests that the medial prefrontal cortex mediates the processing of personal goals during both episodic future thinking and mind-wandering. Differences in activation were also observed, and notably regions supporting cognitive control processes (the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) were recruited to a lesser extent during mind-wandering than experimentally directed future thinking, suggesting that different kinds of self-generated thoughts may recruit varying levels of attentional control abilities.

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Letting go of the present: Mind-wandering is associated with reduced delay discounting

Cited by 126 publications

References 34 publications

Food for Thought: the Efficiency of Glucose Metabolism Predicts the Self-generation of Temporally Distant Cognition

Food for Thought: the Efficiency of Glucose Metabolism Predicts the Self-generation of Temporally Distant Cognition

Digital daydreaming: Introducing the spontaneous smartphone checking scale

Neural correlates of personal goal processing during episodic future thinking and mind-wandering: An ALE meta-analysis

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