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Dispatching the wandering mind? Toward a laboratory method for cuing "spontaneous" off-task thought.

Jennifer C McVay¹, Michael J Kane

¹Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro Greensboro, NC, USA.

Frontiers in Psychology

|September 13, 2013

Summary

Researchers developed a novel method to induce mind wandering on demand using personal concerns as cues. This technique allows for more direct experimental study of the mind wandering experience in cognitive psychology.

Keywords:

attention consciousness current concerns goal priming mind wandering

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience

Background:

Studying attention often relies on external stimuli, but mind wandering is difficult to instigate experimentally.
Current methods for studying mind wandering are primarily correlational and observational, limiting direct manipulation.

Purpose of the Study:

To develop an experimental method for inducing mind wandering episodes on demand.
To facilitate a more theory-driven and experimentally informed approach to studying mind wandering.

Main Methods:

Subjects described personal goals and concerns in an initial session.
In a second session, participants completed a go/no-go task with stimulus words primed to represent personal concerns.
Thought probes were used to assess mind wandering episodes following specific stimuli.

Main Results:

Priming personal concerns via task-embedded cues increased the rate of mind wandering by approximately 3-4% compared to control cues.
This effect, though small, demonstrates the feasibility of experimentally inducing mind wandering.

Conclusions:

The developed method offers a promising approach for the experimental investigation of mind wandering.
This technique could advance a more rigorous, theory-driven science of mind wandering.