Mind-wandering is unguided attention: accounting for the “purposeful” wanderer

Abstract

Although mind-wandering occupies up to half of our waking thoughts, it is seldom discussed in philosophy. My paper brings these neglected thoughts into focus. I propose that mind-wandering is unguided attention. Guidance in my sense concerns how attention is monitored and regulated as it unfolds over time. Roughly speaking, someone's attention is guided if she would feel pulled back, were she distracted from her current focus. Because our wandering thoughts drift unchecked from topic to topic, they are unguided. One motivation for my theory is what I call the ''Puzzle of the Purposeful Wanderer''. On the one hand, mind-wandering seems essentially purposeless; almost by definition, it contrasts with goal-directed cognition. On the other hand, empirical evidence suggests that our minds frequently wander to our goals. My solution to the puzzle is this: mind-wandering is purposeless in one way-it is unguided-but purposeful in another-it is frequently caused, and thus motivated, by our goals. Another motivation for my theory is to distinguish mind-wandering from two antithetical forms of cognition: absorption (e.g. engrossment in an intellectual idea) and rumination (e.g. fixation on one's distress). Surprisingly, previous theories cannot capture these distinctions. I can: on my view, absorption and rumination are guided, whereas mind-wandering is not. My paper has four parts. Section 1 spells out the puzzle. Sections 2 and 3 explicate two extant views of mind-wandering-the first held by most cognitive scientists, the second by Thomas Metzinger. Section 4 uses the limitations of these theories to motivate my own: mind-wandering is unguided attention.

The Philosophy of Mind-Wandering

“…Current definitions of mind-wandering cannot distinguish it from depressive rumination, which is typically task-unrelated and stimulus-independent, but which has dynamics that fundamentally differ from that of mind-wandering (Irving, 2016).…”

“…But now we face the second horn of the dilemma: Some mind-wandering is taskrelated (Irving, 2016). Consider our vignette of a programmer whose mind is wandering on her commute home.…”

“…Yet we contend that when the mind wanders, no guidance mechanism holds our thoughts in place; when the mind wanders to unusual ideas, or from one topic to another, nothing pulls us back. See Irving (2016) for an in-depth discussion of the different types of constraints on thought, including those that are present and absent during mindwandering.…”

What does (and should) "mind wandering" mean?

“…To resolve this apparent problem, we propose that it is important to make a distinction between intentional/unintentional mind wandering and guided/unguided thought (for a similar proposal, see Christoff, Irving, Fox, Spreng, & Andrews-Hanna, 2016;Irving, 2016). That is, rather than conceptualize mind wandering in terms of unintentional thought, it would seem more prudent to conceptualize it as reflecting unguided thought.…”

“…To constrain our prototypical case of mind wandering further, in line with Irving (2016) and Christoff et al (2016), we suggest that it reflects thoughts that are not guided or controlled from moment to moment (i.e., unguided thought). Indeed, as noted earlier, across numerous studies, unguided thought has frequently been implied in researchers' conceptualizations of mind wandering (e.g., Blanchard et al, 2014;Carciofo et al, 2014;Christoff et al, 2016;Qu et al, 2015;Irving, 2016;Rummel & Boywitt, 2014; for more examples, see Seli, Risko, & Smilek, 2016a, Supplemental Materials), and such a conceptualization appears to be a sensible one.…”