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
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Book ChapterDOI
The Middle Way: Finding the Balance between Mindfulness and Mind-Wandering
Jonathan W. Schooler,Michael D. Mrazek,Michael S. Franklin,Benjamin Baird,Benjamin W. Mooneyham,Claire M. Zedelius,James M. Broadway +6 more
TL;DR: Mind-wandering is a common everyday experience in which attention becomes disengaged from the immediate external environment and focused on internal trains of thought as mentioned in this paper, and it can have manifold effects on cognition and affect.
Journal ArticleDOI
Metacognitive processes in the self-regulation of performance in elite endurance runners
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the dynamics of attentional focus and cognitive control during endurance activity from a metacognitive perspective, and found that met-acognitive strategies such as planning, monitoring, reviewing and evaluating, and met-cognitive experiences were fundamental to cognitive control and cognitive strategy use in elite endurance runners.
Book ChapterDOI
Toward Fully Automated Person-Independent Detection of Mind Wandering
Robert Bixler,Sidney K. D'Mello +1 more
TL;DR: This work investigated the use of eye gaze and contextual cues to automatically detect mind wandering during reading with a computer interface and detected positive responses to mind wandering probes from gaze and context features in a user-independent fashion.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mind Wandering, Sleep Quality, Affect and Chronotype: An Exploratory Study
TL;DR: The evidence is suggestive of a bi-directional relationship between poor sleep quality and mind wandering/daydreaming, which may be important in attempts to deal with sleep problems and improve sleep quality.
Journal ArticleDOI
A wandering mind is a less caring mind: Daily experience sampling during compassion meditation training
Hooria Jazaieri,Ihno A. Lee,Kelly McGonigal,Thupten Jinpa,James R. Doty,James J. Gross,Philippe R. Goldin +6 more
TL;DR: For instance, this paper found that the tendency for attention to drift to task-irrelevant thoughts is associated with worse intra-and inter-personal functioning. But their study focused on daily experience sampling with 51 participants.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind
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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.