The effect of transcranial direct current stimulation on the interplay between executive control, behavioral variability and mind wandering: A registered report

Abstract

Mind wandering is a mental phenomenon we humans experience on a daily basis. Yet, we still lack a complete understanding of this pervasive mental state. Over the past decade, there has been an increase in publications regarding mind wandering and non-invasive brain stimulation using transcranial direct current stimulation, a versatile tool that can modulate neuronal excitability and potentially lead to changes in cognition. Results from this line of research are painting a picture of disagreement within the scientific community. While some researchers claim to successfully modulate mind wandering using tDCS, others report problems replicating these findings. Currently, a satisfactory conclusion is lacking, a situation which calls for more accurate and focal stimulation techniques as well as high-powered, registered reports within the topic. Recently, a study reported successfully reducing mind wandering using a more focal stimulation technique, high-definition tDCS (HD-tDCS) over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in adult humans (Boayue et al., 2020). However, this study was not pre-registered and only provides preliminary evidence on the efficacy of HD-tDCS in interfering with mind wandering. The current study aims to replicate the effect found by Boayue et al. (2020), with a high-powered, pre-registered study protocol. Furthermore, we aim at extending the study by investigating whether the effects of HD-tDCS on mind wandering are prolonged, accompanied by changes in tonic and phasic pupillary responses, and neurophysiological responses associated with sensory prediction errors (the mismatch negativity), executive control (frontal midline theta oscillations) and attention (posterior alpha activity).

Catching wandering minds with tapping fingers: neural and behavioral insights into task-unrelated cognition

“…To circumvent these issues, we applied Bayesian hierarchical ordered probit regression ( Boayue et al. 2019 , 2020 ; Bürkner and Vuorre 2019 ; Alexandersen et al. 2021 ) using the brms package (Bayesian Regression Models using Stan; Bürkner 2017 ).…”

Catching wandering minds with tapping fingers: Neural and behavioral insights into task-unrelated cognition

“…Treating the ordinal probe responses as continuous introduces a range of statistical problems, including poor model fitting, low power, increasing the risk for type I and II errors, and spurious interaction effects (Liddell and Kruschke 2018). To circumvent these issues, we applied Bayesian hierarchical ordered probit regression (Boayue et al 2019(Boayue et al , 2020Bürkner and Vuorre 2019;Alexandersen et al 2021) using the brms package (Bayesian Regression Models using Stan; Bürkner 2017). This method models the probability of each discrete point rather than relying on the assumption that the probe responses are normally distributed.…”