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.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Is the Hippocampus a Potential Target for the Modulation of Mind Wandering in Major Depression
Dissertation
Effects of smartphone cues and online vigilance on well-being and performance
TL;DR: Klimmt et al. as discussed by the authors investigated whether being constantly vigilant is related to cognitive consequences in the form of increased mind-wandering and decreased mindfulness, and examined the resulting implications for well-being.
Journal ArticleDOI
Intentional mind-wandering as intentional omission: the surrealist method
TL;DR: The paradox of intentional mind-wandering is presented and the surrealist method for artistic production is presented to illustrate how intentional omission of control over thoughts can be deployed towards creative endeavors.
Book ChapterDOI
Autonomy and control across cognition: insights from creativity, memory, mind wandering, and reasoning research
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that advances in this area can be facilitated by connecting creativity research to other cognitive literatures that make similar delineations among types of thought, but whose evolution has progressed relatively independently.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
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.
Journal ArticleDOI
'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.
Journal ArticleDOI
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.
Journal ArticleDOI
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.