Mind-Wandering With and Without Intention

Seli, Paul; Risko, Evan F.; Smilek, Daniel; Schacter, Daniel L.

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2016.05.010

Cited by 362 publications

(338 citation statements)

References 96 publications

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“…Most importantly, participants in the Gyurkovics et al (2017) study reported only whether their thoughts were on-task or off-task, which made it difficult to ascertain what proportion of taskunrelated thoughts involved truly spontaneous (i.e., unintended) rather than intentional mindwandering (see Smallwood & Schooler, 2015;Seli, Risko, Smilek & Schacter, 2016).…”

Section: Cdr-based Classification Used By Gyurkovics Et Al (2017) Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Reduced mind-wandering in mild cognitive impairment: Testing the spontaneous retrieval deficit hypothesis.

Niedźwieńska¹,

Kvavilashvili²

2018

Neuropsychology

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Objective: Research on early cognitive markers of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is primarily focused on declarative episodic memory tests that involve deliberate and effortful/strategic processes at retrieval. The present study tested the Spontaneous Retrieval Deficit Hypothesis, which predicts that people with amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI), who are at increased risk of developing AD, are particularly impaired on tasks that rely on spontaneous retrieval processes.Method: Twenty-three participants with aMCI and 25 healthy controls (HC) completed an easy vigilance task and thought probes (reporting what was going through their mind), which were categorized as spontaneous thoughts about the past (i.e., involuntary memories), current situation, and future (i.e., spontaneous prospection).Results: Participants with aMCI reported significantly fewer spontaneous thoughts or mindwandering than HC. This effect was driven by significantly fewer involuntary memories, while groups did not differ in the number of current and future thoughts. Conclusions: Findings provide strong support for the Spontaneous Retrieval DeficitHypothesis. Implications for research on mind-wandering and the default network, early cognitive markers of the disease, and our theoretical understanding of the nature of cognitive deficits in Alzheimer's disease are discussed.

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Section: Cdr-based Classification Used By Gyurkovics Et Al (2017) Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Reduced mind-wandering in mild cognitive impairment: Testing the spontaneous retrieval deficit hypothesis.

Niedźwieńska¹,

Kvavilashvili²

2018

Neuropsychology

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“…Recent research has shown that mind wandering consists of a complex, multi-faceted pattern involving episodic thought, emotion, executive control and meta-awareness in a component process account [36] featuring intricate combinations of corresponding neural responses [37]. Furthermore, intention during mind wandering has recently been identified as a key dimension with great explanatory power [38][39][40]. Our model is less concerned with such precise specification of the mind-wandering state and instead emphasizes the dynamics of the transitions between different attentional states.…”

Section: A Neural Model Of Mind Wanderingmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Neural Model of Mind Wandering

Mittner¹,

Hawkins²,

Boekel³

et al. 2017

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

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“…From a different perspective, the distinction between deliberate vs. nondeliberate MW gained increasing interest recently, with deliberate MW being accompanied by elevated FPN activity (4, 9). Considering that deliberate MW is less frequent in demanding tasks (9), the paradigm of Kucyi et al (7) might not have allowed extended periods of intentional MW, resulting in weaker FPN signals.…”

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confidence: 99%

Linking brain networks and behavioral variability to different types of mind-wandering

Csifcsák

Mittner

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Research focusing on mind-wandering (MW) has consistently shown that this mental state is accompanied by variable, error-prone behavior and increased activity within the default mode network (DMN) and the frontoparietal control network (FPN) (1-6). Given that the DMN has been implicated in internal mentation such as future planning or self-referential processing, whereas the FPN has been linked to cognitive control, the idea that activity within both networks is coupled with self-reported MW and poor behavioral performance has been widely accepted in this research field. In an intriguing new study in PNAS, Kucyi et al. (7) challenge this view by showing that hemodynamic responses in the DMN are strongest during periods of MW and stable, rather than variable, behavior. This remarkable result widens our knowledge on task-positive aspects of the DMN. Simultaneously, it remains rather puzzling how this network can be involved in MW and stable behavior at the same time, or why the authors found no relationship between behavioral measures and FPN activity (2, 3).We believe that the apparent conflict between these findings and earlier reports can be resolved by highlighting that MW is not a unitary phenomenon. Recently, we proposed that aspects of MW may involve two hierarchically organized states that differ in their behavioral and neural signatures: an "off-focus" state characterized by less variable behavior and increased activity in core DMN nodes and an "active MW" state associated with more variable behavior and elevated hemodynamic signals in other DMN subcomponents such as the medial temporal lobe (MTL) subsystem (8). According to this model, off-focus states are more common in demanding tasks involving complex stimuli, and thus might have been dominant in the study by Kucyi et al. (7). The overrepresentation of off-focus states can explain why DMN activity was associated with both self-reported MW and stable behavior, and why there was no correlation between behavioral stability and activity in the MTL subsystem. Furthermore, the predominance of off-focus states can also account for the absence of MW-related FPN recruitment in this study, because the FPN has been linked to internally guided cognition (6), resembling active MW (8). From a different perspective, the distinction between deliberate vs. nondeliberate MW gained increasing interest recently, with deliberate MW being accompanied by elevated FPN activity (4, 9). Considering that deliberate MW is less frequent in demanding tasks (9), the paradigm of Kucyi et al. (7) might not have allowed extended periods of intentional MW, resulting in weaker FPN signals.The study by Kucyi et al. (7) is unique because it not only underscores the diverse functional characteristics of the DMN but also convincingly shows that the interplay between neural networks, task performance, and selfreported MW is not straightforward. With the aim of extending their interpretation of results, we emphasize that heterogeneity not only applies to the function of the DMN but also to MW...

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Mind-Wandering With and Without Intention

Cited by 362 publications

References 96 publications

Reduced mind-wandering in mild cognitive impairment: Testing the spontaneous retrieval deficit hypothesis.

Reduced mind-wandering in mild cognitive impairment: Testing the spontaneous retrieval deficit hypothesis.

A Neural Model of Mind Wandering

Linking brain networks and behavioral variability to different types of mind-wandering

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