Abstract
Mind wandering episodes have been construed as periods of “stimulus-independent” thought, where our minds are decoupled from the external sensory environment. In two experiments, we used behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) measures to determine whether mind wandering episodes can also be considered as periods of “response-independent” thought, with our minds disengaged from adjusting our behavioral outputs. In the first experiment, participants performed a motor tracking task and were occasionally prompted to report whether their attention was “on-task” or “mind wandering.” We found greater tracking error in periods prior to mind wandering vs. on-task reports. To ascertain whether this finding was due to attenuation in visual perception per se vs. a disruptive effect of mind wandering on performance monitoring, we conducted a second experiment in which participants completed a time-estimation task. They were given feedback on the accuracy of their estimations while we recorded their EEG, and were also occasionally asked to report their attention state. We found that the sensitivity of behavior and the P3 ERP component to feedback signals were significantly reduced just prior to mind wandering vs. on-task attentional reports. Moreover, these effects co-occurred with decreases in the error-related negativity elicited by feedback signals (fERN), a direct measure of behavioral feedback assessment in cortex. Our findings suggest that the functional consequences of mind wandering are not limited to just the processing of incoming stimulation per se, but extend as well to the control and adjustment of behavior.
Highlights
Mind wandering, or those transient periods of time during which our attention momentarily drifts away from our on-going task and perceptual milieu, is fundamental to human neurocognitive function
Given the lack of external feedback on the participants’ performance, it is unclear whether the increased tracking error during mind wandering was due to visual sensory attenuation per se (Kam et al, 2011), or whether mind wandering can down-regulate behavioral/performance monitoring
To determine the impact of mind wandering on performance monitoring, we measured the feedback error-related negativity elicited by task feedback in the intervals immediately preceding “on-task” vs. “mind wandering” reports
Summary
Those transient periods of time during which our attention momentarily drifts away from our on-going task and perceptual milieu, is fundamental to human neurocognitive function. In terms of neural architecture, mind wandering episodes have been strongly associated with activation of the brain’s default mode network (e.g., Mason et al, 2007; Christoff et al, 2009; Kirschner et al, 2012), while in terms of cognitive processes, mind wandering has been tied to fluctuations in executive control (e.g., McVay and Kane, 2009, 2012) Such findings have supported the hypothesis that regular oscillations in the depth of our neurocognitive engagement with the external environment is normative to healthy human brain function (e.g., Smallwood and Schooler, 2006; Schooler et al, 2011; Smallwood, in press), and that a variety of clinical and sub-clinical cognitive pathologies may be linked to altered patterns of mind wandering (e.g., Shaw and Giambra, 1993; Helton, 2009; Smallwood et al, 2009; Killingsworth and Gilbert, 2010; Elua et al, 2012). Behavioral motor performance reliably shifts to a more automatic and/or degraded state (e.g., Schooler et al, 2004; Cheyne et al, 2006; Weissman et al, 2006; Carriere et al, 2008; Smallwood et al, 2008; Reichle et al, 2010), such that reaction times (RTs) tend to speed up and error rates are higher during mind wandering vs. on-task states (Smallwood et al, 2004; Franklin et al, 2011)
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