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Updated: Jul 15, 2025

Measurement of Neurophysiological Signals of Ignoring and Attending Processes in Attention Control
Published on: July 5, 2015
Mind wandering may both promote and impair learning
Alexander Soemer1, Christian Gericke2, Ulrich Schiefele2
1Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology, University of Tübingen, Europastr. 6, 72072, Tübingen, Germany. alexander.soemer@uni-tuebingen.de.
Abstract:
The present investigation deals with individual differences in habitual (trait-level) mind wandering and their effects on learning. We hypothesized that the 'positive-constructive' type of habitual mind wandering would promote task-related thinking and the 'poor-attention' type to promote task-unrelated thinking. This hypothesis was tested in a study with 200 participants who rated different aspects of their mind wandering in daily life in one session and completed a reading study in a second session. The reading study included thought probes, retrospective questions about readers' thought contents, and comprehension tests after reading. In line with our hypothesis, data analysis revealed that some forms of positive-constructive mind wandering were positively associated with text-related thought, whereas poor-attention mind wandering was positively associated with text-unrelated thought. The present results add to the literature by emphasizing different types of trait-level mind wandering and their potentially opposite effects on learning.
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