Relationships between mind-wandering and attentional control abilities in young adults and adolescents

Acta Psychologica

Volumn 148, Issue , 2014, Pages 25-36

  Stawarczyk, David ^a,b   Majerus, Steve ^a,b   Catale, Corinne ^a   D'Argembeau, Arnaud ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LIÈGE   (Belgium)

^b Fund for Scientific Research FNRS   (Belgium)

Author keywords

Adolescence; Attentional control abilities; Distractions; Mind wandering; Working memory

Indexed keywords

ADOLESCENCE; ADOLESCENT; ADULT; ARTICLE; ATTENTION; ATTENTIONAL CONTROL ABILITIES; COGNITION; DISTRACTIONS; FEMALE; HUMAN; MALE; MIND-WANDERING; PHYSIOLOGY; QUESTIONNAIRE; REACTION TIME; SHORT TERM MEMORY; TASK PERFORMANCE; THINKING; WORKING MEMORY; YOUNG ADULT;

ADOLESCENCE; ATTENTIONAL CONTROL ABILITIES; DISTRACTIONS; MIND-WANDERING; WORKING MEMORY;

ADOLESCENT; ADULT; ATTENTION; COGNITION; FEMALE; HUMANS; MALE; MEMORY, SHORT-TERM; QUESTIONNAIRES; REACTION TIME; TASK PERFORMANCE AND ANALYSIS; THINKING; YOUNG ADULT;

EID: 84893173502     PISSN: 00016918     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2014.01.007     Document Type: Article

References (92)

1. Baird B., Smallwood J., Schooler J.W. Back to the future: Autobiographical planning and the functionality of mind-wandering. Consciousness & Cognition 2011, 20:1604-1611.
2. Barron E., Riby L.M., Greer J., Smallwood J. Absorbed in thought: the effect of mind wandering on the processing of relevant and irrelevant events. Psychological Science 2011, 22:596-601.
3. Bastian M., Sackur J. Mind wandering at the fingertips: Automatic parsing of subjective states based on response time variability. Frontiers in Psychology 2013, 4:573.
4. Beck A.T., Epstein N., Brown G., Steer R.A. An inventory for measuring clinical anxiety: Psychometric properties. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 1988, 56:893-897.
5. Braver T.S. The variable nature of cognitive control: A dual mechanisms framework. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 2012, 16:106-113.
6. Braver T.S., Barch D.M., Keys B.A., Carter C.S., Cohen J.D., Kaye J.A., et al. Context processing in older adults: Evidence for a theory relating cognitive control to neurobiology in healthy aging. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 2001, 130:746-763.
7. Braver, T. S., Gray, J. R., & Burgess, G. C. (2007). Explaining the many varieties of working memory variation: Dual mechanisms of cognitive control. In A. R. A. Conway, C. Jarrold, M. J. Kane, A. Miyake & J. N. Towse (Eds.), Variation in working memory (pp. 76-106). New York, NY: Oxford University Press; US.
8. Braver T.S., Satpute A.B., Rush B.K., Racine C.A., Barch D.M. Context processing and context maintenance in healthy aging and early stage Dementia of the Alzheimer's type. Psychology and Aging 2005, 20:33-46.
9. Carriere J.S., Cheyne J.A., Solman G.J.F., Smilek D. Age trends for failures of sustained attention. Psychology & Aging 2010, 25:569-574.
10. Chabrol H., Montovany A., Chouicha K., Duconge E. Study of the CES-D on a sample of 1,953 adolescent students. Encephale 2002, 28:429-432.
11. Cheyne J.A., Solman G.J.F., Carriere J.S.A., Smilek D. Anatomy of an error: A bidirectional state model of task engagement/disengagement and attention-related errors. Cognition 2009, 111:98-113.
12. Chuah Y.M., Maybery M.T. Verbal and spatial short-term memory: Common sources of developmental change?. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 1999, 73:7-44.
13. Conway A.R., Kane M.J., Bunting M.F., Hambrick D., Wilhelm O., Engle R.W. Working memory span tasks: A methodological review and user's guide. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 2005, 12:769-786.
14. Cowan N., Elliott E.M., Scott Saults J., Morey C.C., Mattox S., Hismjatullina A., et al. On the capacity of attention: Its estimation and its role in working memory and cognitive aptitudes. Cognitive Psychology 2005, 51:42-100.
15. De Luca C.R., Wood S.J., Anderson V., Buchanan J.-A., Proffitt T.M., Mahony K., et al. Normative data from the Cantab. I: Development of executive function over the lifespan. Journal of Clinical & Experimental Neuropsychology: Official Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society 2003, 25:242-254.
16. Delaloye C., Ludwig C., Borella E., Chicherio C., de Ribaupierre A. The Reading Span as a measure of working memory capacity: Norms based on a French speaking population of 775 younger and older adults. European Review of Applied Psychology/Revue Europeenne de Psychologie Appliquee 2008, 58:89-103.
17. Einstein G.O., McDaniel M.A. Aging and mind wandering: Reduced inhibition in older adults?. Experimental Aging Research 1997, 23:343-354.
18. Engle, R. W., & Kane, M. J. (2004). Executive Attention, Working Memory Capacity, and a Two-Factor Theory of Cognitive Control. In B. H. Ross (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation: Advances in research and theory, Vol. 44 (pp. 145-199). New York, NY: Elsevier Science; US.
19. Finnigan F., Schulze D., Smallwood J. Alcohol and the wandering mind: A new direction in the study of alcohol on attentional lapses. The Journal of Endocrine Genetics 2007, 6:189-199.
20. Franklin M.S., Smallwood J., Schooler J.W. Catching the mind in flight: Using behavioral indices to detect mindless reading in real time. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 2011, 18:992-997.
21. Freeston M., Ladouceur R., Thibodeau N., Gagnon F., Rhéaume J. L'inventaire d'anxiété de Beck: Propriétés psychométriques d'une traduction française. L'Encephale: Revue de Psychiatrie Clinique Biologique et Therapeutique 1994, 20:47-55.
22. French B.F., Zentall S.S., Bennett D. Short-term memory of children with and without characteristics of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Learning and Individual Differences 2001, 13:205-225.
23. Friedman N.P., Miyake A. The relations among inhibition and interference control functions: A latent-variable analysis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 2004, 133:101-135.
24. Fry A.F., Hale S. Processing speed, working memory, and fluid intelligence: Evidence for a developmental cascade. Psychological Science 1996, 7:237-241.
25. Fuhrer R., Rouillon F. La version française de l'échelle CES-D (Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale). Description et traduction de l'échelle d'autoévaluation. Psychiatrie et Psychobiologie 1989, 4:163-166.
26. Giambra L.M. Task-unrelated thought frequency as a function of age: A laboratory study. Psychology and Aging 1989, 4:136-143.
27. Giambra L.M. The influence of aging on spontaneous shifts of attention from external stimuli to the contents of consciousness. Experimental Gerontology 1993, 28:485-492.
28. Gilbert S.J., Dumontheil I., Simons J.S., Frith C.D., Burgess P.W. Comment on "Wandering minds: The default network and stimulus-independent thought". Science 2007, 317:43. (author reply 43).
29. Hasenkamp W., Wilson-Mendenhall C.D., Duncan E., Barsalou L.W. Mind wandering and attention during focused meditation: A fine-grained temporal analysis of fluctuating cognitive states. NeuroImage 2012, 59:750-760.
30. Helton W.S. Impulsive responding and the sustained attention to response task. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology 2009, 31:39-47.
31. Helton W.S., Kern R.P., Walker D.R. Conscious thought and the sustained attention to response task. Consciousness and Cognition: An International Journal 2009, 18:600-607.
32. Hines A.M., Shaw G.A. Intrusive thoughts, sensation seeking, and drug use in college students. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society 1993, 31:541-544.
33. Hu N., He S., Xu B. Different efficiencies of attentional orienting in different wandering minds. Consciousness & Cognition 2012, 21:139-148.
34. Iselin A.-M.R., DeCoster J. Reactive and proactive control in incarcerated and community adolescents and young adults. Cognitive Development 2009, 24:192-206.
35. Jackson J.D., Balota D.A. Mind-wandering in younger and older adults: Converging evidence from the sustained attention to response task and reading for comprehension. Psychology & Aging 2012, 27:106-119.
36. Kam J.W., Dao E., Farley J., Fitzpatrick K., Smallwood J., Schooler J.W., et al. Slow fluctuations in attentional control of sensory cortex. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 2011, 23:460-470.
37. Kam J.W., Handy T.C. The neurocognitive consequences of the wandering mind: A mechanistic account of sensory-motor decoupling. Frontiers in Psychology 2013, 4:725.
38. Kane M.J., Brown L.H., McVay J.C., Silvia P.J., Myin-Germeys I., Kwapil T.R. For whom the mind wanders, and when: An experience-sampling study of working memory and executive control in daily life. Psychological Science 2007, 18:614-621.
39. Kane, M. J., Conway, A. R. A., Hambrick, D. Z., & Engle, R. W. (2007). Variation in working memory capacity as variation in executive attention and control. In A. R. A. Conway, C. Jarrold, M. J. Kane, A. Miyake & J. N. Towse (Eds.), Variation in working memory (pp. 21-46). New York, NY: Oxford University Press; US.
40. Kane M.J., McVay J.C. What mind wandering reveals about executive-control abilities and failures. Current Directions in Psychological Science 2012, 21:348-354.
41. Killingsworth M.A., Gilbert D.T. A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science 2010, 330:932.
42. Klinger E. Structure and functions of fantasy 1971, Wiley, New York.
43. Klinger E. Daydreaming and fantasizing: Thought flow and motivation. Handbook of imagination and mental simulation 2009, 225-239. Psychology Press, New York, NY. K.D. Markman, W.M.P. Klein, J.A. Suhr (Eds.).
44. Klinger E. Goal Commitments and the content of thoughts and dreams: Basic principles. Frontiers in Psychology 2013, 4:415.
45. Krawietz S.A., Tamplin A.K., Radvansky G.A. Aging and mind wandering during text comprehension. Psychology & Aging 2012, 27:951-958.
46. Kucyi A., Salomons T.V., Davis K.D. Mind wandering away from pain dynamically engages antinociceptive and default mode brain networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2013, 110:18692-18697.
47. Levinson D.B., Smallwood J., Davidson R.J. The persistence of thought: Evidence for a role of working memory in the maintenance of task-unrelated thinking. Psychological Science 2012, 23:375-380.
48. Lustig C., Hasher L., Tonev S.T. Inhibitory control over the present and the past. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology 2001, 13:107-122.
49. Masicampo E.J., Baumeister R.F. Consider it done! Plan making can eliminate the cognitive effects of unfulfilled goals. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 2011, 101:667-683.
50. Masicampo E.J., Baumeister R.F. Unfulfilled goals interfere with tasks that require executive functions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 2011, 47:300-311.
51. McKiernan K.A., D'Angelo B.R., Kaufman J.N., Binder J.R. Interrupting the "stream of consciousness": An fMRI investigation. NeuroImage 2006, 29:1185-1191.
52. McVay J.C., Kane M.J. Conducting the train of thought: Working memory capacity, goal neglect, and mind wandering in an executive-control task. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition 2009, 35:196-204.
53. McVay J.C., Kane M.J. Does mind wandering reflect executive function or executive failure? Comment on Smallwood and Schooler (2006) and Watkins (2008). Psychological Bulletin 2010, 136:188-197.
54. McVay, J. C., & Kane, M. J. (2010a). Adrift in the stream of thought: The effects of mind wandering on executive control and working memory capacity. In A. Gruszka, G. Matthews & B. Szymura (Eds.), Handbook of individual differences in cognition: Attention, memory, and executive control (pp. 321-334). New York, NY: Springer Science+Business Media; US.
55. McVay J.C., Kane M.J. Drifting from slow to "d'oh!": Working memory capacity and mind wandering predict extreme reaction times and executive control errors. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition 2012, 38:525-549.
56. McVay J.C., Kane M.J. Why does working memory capacity predict variation in reading comprehension? On the influence of mind wandering and executive attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 2012, 141:302-320.
57. McVay J.C., Meier M.E., Touron D.R., Kane M.J. Aging ebbs the flow of thought: Adult age differences in mind wandering, executive control, and self-evaluation. Acta Psychologica 2013, 142:136-147.
58. McVay J.C., Unsworth N., McMillan B.D., Kane M.J. Working memory capacity does not always support future-oriented mind-wandering. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology 2013, 67:41-50.
59. Mrazek M.D., Phillips D.T., Franklin M.S., Broadway J.M., Schooler J.W. Young and restless: Validation of the Mind-Wandering Questionnaire (MWQ) reveals disruptive impact of mind-wandering for youth. Frontiers in Psychology 2013, 4:560.
60. Osman A., Hoffman J., Barrios F.X., Kopper B.A., Breitenstein J.L., Hahn S.K. Factor structure, reliability, and validity of the Beck Anxiety Inventory in adolescent psychiatric inpatients. Journal of Clinical Psychology 2002, 58:443-456.
61. Radloff L.S. The CES-D scale: A self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Applied Psychological Measurement 1977, 1:385-401.
62. Raven J.C., Raven J.E., Court J.H. Manual for Raven's Progressive Matrices and Vocabulary Scales 1998, Oxford Psychologists Press, Oxford, UK.
63. Redick T.S., Broadway J.M., Meier M.E., Kuriakose P.S., Unsworth N., Kane M.J., et al. Measuring working memory capacity with automated complex span tasks. European Journal of Psychological Assessment 2012, 28:164-171.
64. Robert C., Borella E., Fagot D., Lecerf T., De Ribaupierre A. Working memory and inhibitory control across the life span: Intrusion errors in the Reading Span Test. Memory & Cognition 2009, 37:336-345.
65. Robertson I.H., Manly T., Andrade J., Baddeley B.T., Yiend J. 'Oops!': Performance correlates of everyday attentional failures in traumatic brain injured and normal subjects. Neuropsychologia 1997, 35:747-758.
66. Sayette M.A., Reichle E.D., Schooler J.W. Lost in the sauce: The effects of alcohol on mind wandering. Psychological Science 2009, 20:747-752.
67. Schooler J.W., Smallwood J., Christoff K., Handy T.C., Reichle E.D., Sayette M.A. Meta-awareness, perceptual decoupling and the wandering mind. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 2011, 15:319-326.
68. Seli P., Cheyne J.A., Smilek D. Attention failures versus misplaced diligence: Separating attention lapses from speed-accuracy trade-offs. Consciousness & Cognition 2012, 21:277-291.
69. Seli P., Cheyne J.A., Smilek D. Wandering minds and wavering rhythms: Linking mind wandering and behavioral variability. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance 2013, 39:1-5.
70. Seli P., Jonker T.R., Cheyne J.A., Smilek D. Enhancing SART validity by statistically controlling speed-accuracy trade-offs. Frontiers in Psychology 2013, 4:265.
71. Shaw G., Giambra L.M. Task-unrelated thoughts of college students diagnosed as hyperactive in childhood. Developmental Neuropsychology 1993, 9:17-30.
72. Siegel L.S. Working memory and reading: A life-span perspective. International Journal of Behavioral Development 1994, 17:109-124.
73. Singer J.L. Experimental studies of ongoing conscious experience. Ciba Foundation Symposium 1993, 174:100-122.
74. Singer J.L., Antrobus J.S. Imaginal process inventory 1970, City University of New York, New York.
75. Smallwood J. Why the global availability of mind wandering necessitates resource competition: Reply to McVay and Kane (2010). Psychological Bulletin 2010, 136:202-207.
76. Smallwood J. Mind-wandering while reading: Attentional decoupling, mindless reading and the cascade model of inattention. Language and Linguistics Compass 2011, 5:63-77.
77. Smallwood J. Distinguishing how from why the mind wanders: A process-occurrence framework for self-generated mental activity. Psychological Bulletin 2013, 139:519-535.
78. Smallwood J., Brown K., Baird B., Schooler J.W. Cooperation between the default mode network and the frontal-parietal network in the production of an internal train of thought. Brain Research 2012, 1428:60-70.
79. Smallwood J., Davies J.B., Heim D., Finnigan F., Sudberry M., O'Connor R., et al. Subjective experience and the attentional lapse: Task engagement and disengagement during sustained attention. Consciousness and Cognition: An International Journal 2004, 13:657-690.
80. Smallwood J., Schooler J.W. The restless mind. Psychological Bulletin 2006, 132:946-958.
81. Smilek D., Carriere J.S., Cheyne J. Out of mind, out of sight: Eye blinking as indicator and embodiment of mind wandering. Psychological Science 2010, 21:786-789.
82. Song X., Wang X. Mind wandering in Chinese daily lives-An experience sampling study. PLoS ONE 2012, 7:e44423. (Electronic Resource).
83. Stawarczyk D., Cassol H., D'Argembeau A. Phenomenology of future-oriented mind-wandering episodes. Frontiers in Psychology 2013, 4:225.
84. Stawarczyk D., Majerus S., D'Argembeau A. Concern-induced negative affect is associated with the occurrence and content of mind-wandering. Consciousness & Cognition 2013, 22:442-448.
85. Stawarczyk D., Majerus S., Maj M., Van der Linden M., D'Argembeau A. Mind-wandering: Phenomenology and function as assessed with a novel experience sampling method. Acta Psychologica 2011, 136:370-381.
86. Stawarczyk D., Majerus S., Maquet P., D'Argembeau A. Neural correlates of ongoing conscious experience: Both task-unrelatedness and stimulus-independence are related to default network activity. PLoS ONE 2011, 6:e16997. (Electronic Resource).
87. Stawarczyk D., Majerus S., Van der Linden M., D'Argembeau A. Using the daydreaming frequency scale to investigate the relationships between mind-wandering, psychological well-being, and present-moment awareness. Frontiers in Psychology 2012, 3:363.
88. Unsworth N., McMillan B.D. Mind wandering and reading comprehension: Examining the roles of working memory capacity, interest, motivation, and topic experience. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 2013, 39:832-842.
89. Unsworth N., Redick T.S., Heitz R.P., Broadway J.M., Engle R.W. Complex working memory span tasks and higher-order cognition: A latent-variable analysis of the relationship between processing and storage. Memory 2009, 17:635-654.
90. Unsworth N., Redick T.S., Lakey C.E., Young D.L. Lapses in sustained attention and their relation to executive control and fluid abilities: An individual differences investigation. Intelligence 2010, 38:111-122.
91. Verwoerd J., Wessel I., de Jong P.J. Individual differences in experiencing intrusive memories: The role of the ability to resist proactive interference. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry 2009, 40:189-201.
92. Verwoerd J., Wessel I., de Jong P.J., Nieuwenhuis M.M., Huntjens R.J. Pre-stressor interference control and intrusive memories. Cognitive Therapy and Research 2011, 35:161-170.