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

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a tremendous increase in the number of studies examining mind wandering, and research on the topic has spread widely across various domains of psychological research. As research on the topic of mind wandering has accelerated, the defining features of this conscious state have expanded, and researchers have begun to define mind wandering in conceptually and operationally different ways between -and sometimes even within -studies.Yet, despite clear differences in the definitions adopted, 'mind wandering' is often discussed in broad terms, and inferences drawn by researchers are rarely constrained to their specific operational definitions. This practice produces a lack of clarity in our understanding of mind wandering, and it can lead to illusory inconsistencies in the literature. To minimize these problems, we propose that researchers adopt a family-resemblances approach to the investigation of mind wandering, which entails (a) treating mind wandering as a heterogeneous construct and (b) more clearly measuring and describing the specific aspects of the variety of mind wandering that researchers are attempting to investigate. To help move the field forward, we delineate a prototypical case of mind wandering in the broader context of related forms of thought, which should guide the use of the term in future research.

Mind wandering in people with Multiple Sclerosis: A psychometric study

“…When interpreting these results, we should consider some limitations as well as future developments. Since MW phenomenon also contributes to failures in sustained attention, working memory and real-word task with a high cognitive load as driving performance 37 , further studies should consider information about PwMS' cognitive functioning, one the most affected domain in MS. Furthermore, in our study we entirely considered a self-report measure able to catch the frequency of spontaneous and deliberate MW in everyday life.…”

Variation in divergent thinking, executive-control abilities, and mind-wandering measured in and out of the laboratory

“…Not necessarily. Mind-wandering is a complex and multi-faceted construct that may be operationalized in many ways and studied in many contexts (see Christoff et al, 2016;Seli et al 2018aSeli et al , 2018b. Perhaps operationalizing mind-wandering as reports of TUTs during laboratory tasks is not ideal for creativity research (Christoff et al, 2016); that is, maybe only some varieties of mindwandering-such as more freely flowing, unconstrained thoughts-facilitate creativity (Girn et al, 2020;Irving et al, 2022).…”

Variation in divergent thinking, executive-control abilities, and mind-wandering measured in and out of the laboratory

“…Not necessarily. Mind-wandering is a complex and multi-faceted construct that may be operationalized in many ways and studied in many contexts (see Seli et al 2018aSeli et al , 2018b.…”