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Journal ArticleDOI

The costs and benefits of mind-wandering: a review

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TLDR
Recent studies have shown that mind-wandering may play a crucial role in both autobiographical planning and creative problem solving, thus providing at least two possible adaptive functions of the phenomenon.
Abstract
Substantial evidence suggests that mind-wandering typically occurs at a significant cost to performance. Mind-wandering-related deficits in performance have been observed in many contexts, most notably reading, tests of sustained attention, and tests of aptitude. Mind-wandering has been shown to negatively impact reading comprehension and model building, impair the ability to withhold automatized responses, and disrupt performance on tests of working memory and intelligence. These empirically identified costs of mind-wandering have led to the suggestion that mind-wandering may represent a pure failure of cognitive control and thus pose little benefit. However, emerging evidence suggests that the role of mind-wandering is not entirely pernicious. Recent studies have shown that mind-wandering may play a crucial role in both autobiographical planning and creative problem solving, thus providing at least two possible adaptive functions of the phenomenon. This article reviews these observed costs and possible functions of mind-wandering and identifies important avenues of future inquiry.

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Citations
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The Relationship Between Online Vigilance and Affective Well-Being in Everyday Life: Combining Smartphone Logging with Experience Sampling

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors define a mind-set of connectedness as "the tendency of humans to become constantly connected to others to such an extent that they routinely develop a mindset of connectivity".
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A role for the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in self-generated episodic social cognition.

TL;DR: In a whole brain analyses, it is found that neural activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC) increases when participants are engaged in experiences which emphasise episodic and socio-cognitive features.
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The mind that wanders: Challenges and potential benefits of mind wandering in education.

TL;DR: This article reviewed how mind wandering impacts comprehension during lectures and reading, and how it relates to general academic success, and suggested that, rather than attempting to eliminate mind wandering entirely, we should attempt to alleviate mind wandering at the most strategic times, using research to suggest what techniques should be applied, and when.
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Autopilot, Mind Wandering, and the Out of the Loop Performance Problem.

TL;DR: This article reviews the literature related to both mind wandering and the out of the loop performance problem as it relates to task automation, and highlights studies showing how these phenomena interact with each other while impacting human performance within highly automated systems.
Journal Article

Self- directed learning barriers in a virtual environment: a qualitative study

TL;DR: By the importance of self-direction in online education, the present study results can be used by virtual education planners in the review and design of courses, so as to adequately equip students, obviate barriers to self-directed virtual education, and ultimately train highly self- directed learners in online medical education.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research.

TL;DR: The basic theme of the review is that eye movement data reflect moment-to-moment cognitive processes in the various tasks examined.
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A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind

TL;DR: The iPhone Hap App reveals that wandering thoughts lead to unhappiness and that doing so typically makes people unhappy.
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'Oops!': performance correlates of everyday attentional failures in traumatic brain injured and normal subjects

TL;DR: It is shown that errors on the SART can be predicted by a significant shortening of reaction times in the immediately preceding responses, supporting the view that these errors are a result of 'drift' of controlled processing into automatic responding consequent on impaired sustained attention to task.
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The restless mind

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors review the hypothesis that mind-wandering can be integrated into standard executive models of attention and show that it often occurs in the absence of explicit intention.
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Mindfulness Training Improves Working Memory Capacity and GRE Performance While Reducing Mind Wandering

TL;DR: Cultivating mindfulness is an effective and efficient technique for improving cognitive function, with wide-reaching consequences, and improves both GRE reading-comprehension scores and working memory capacity.
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