Task-unrelated thought during educational activities: A meta-analysis of its occurrence and relationship with learning

Mind-wandering increases in frequency over time during task performance: An individual-participant meta-analytic review.

“…Other meta-analytic and large-sample investigations of mind-wandering in daily life provide similar estimates: Ecological momentary assessment catches individuals’ mind-wandering about 35% to 50% of the time (Kawashima et al, 2023; Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010). Another recent meta-analysis of mind-wandering in educationally relevant contexts provides a slightly more conservative estimate: Individuals’ ( N = 5,890) minds wander 31.74% of the time during educational activities such as while listening to lectures (Wong et al, 2022). The results of our meta-analysis are in line with these prior studies and together provide conclusive support for the notion that individuals spend a substantial portion of their time off-task with their attention turned inward toward task-unrelated thought.…”

“…Such an investigation is warranted given the disruptive and consequential influence of mind-wandering on-task performance. The frequent occurrence of mind-wandering reliably predicts poorer behavioral performance across a range of tasks and activities (e.g., Kane et al, 2016; Randall et al, 2014; Wong et al, 2022).…”

“…The frequent occurrence of mind-wandering reliably predicts poorer behavioral performance across a range of tasks and activities (e.g., Randall et al, 2014;Wong et al, 2022).…”

A Wandering Mind is Not Always a Creative Mind: How Thought Dynamics Explain the Relationship between Mind Wandering and Creativity

“…The vast majority of mind wandering research has been focused on its negative effect on performance across tasks. For instance, mind wandering negatively affects complex cognitive processes such as reading comprehension (e.g., Bonifacci, Viroli, Vassura, Colombini, & Desideri, 2022; Faber, Bixler, & D'Mello, 2018; Faber, Mills, Kopp, & D'Mello, 2017; Kahmann, Ozuer, Zedelius, & Bijleveld, 2022), memory for auditory and visual information (e.g., films, lectures, and scenes; Krasich et al., 2018; Krasich, Huffman, Faber, & Brockmole, 2020; Faber, Radvansky, & D'Mello, 2018; Faber, Krasich, Bixler, Brockmole, & D'Mello, 2020; Wong, Smith, McGrath, Flynn, & Mills, 2022), driving performance (e.g., Yanko & Spalek, 2014), and performance on vigilance tasks (e.g., Krimsky, Forster, Llabre, & Jha, 2017). However, in the context of creativity, at least anecdotally, mind wandering is often thought to have a positive effect: brilliant ideas appear to spontaneously come to mind when people let their minds wander.…”

What Flips Attention?

“…Familiarity‐detection that drives a retrieval attempt for potentially relevant information could be useful for learning and creative problem‐solving and may even drive curiosity and information seeking (McNeely‐White, 2022; Metcalfe, Schwartz, & Eich, 2020). However, it may be harmful in situations where outward‐directed attention is needed for optimal ongoing task performance, particularly if it leads to more task‐unrelated thought (Kam et al., 2021; Wong, Smith, McGrath, Flynn, & Mills, 2022), or where inward‐directed attention is excessive (Ingram, 1990) or negative (Carver & Ganellen, 1983).…”