The kaleidoscope of bizarreness: The analysis of first-person-reports shows the relationship between dreaming and mind wandering to be complex.

What do agreeable people think about? spontaneous thoughts as a component of personality

For the billions who practice a religion, gratitude is thought to be often expressed toward their God in prayers. We build upon two theoretical frameworks to test the effects of gratitude to God on factors central to maintaining religion: a relationship with God and incentive salience for repeating prayer. We developed a protocol to collect spoken prayers and diary data over 2 weeks (N = 93 Christians; 1,118 prayers). We present two automated text analysis methods to index gratitude in transcribed prayers: dictionary-based and GPT-4. We find that GTG is often expressed in prayers, and when people express more GTG in their prayers than their average, they report a better relationship with God and more incentive salience (positive spontaneous thoughts) about prayer. Evidence was not strong for repeating the prayer behavior. We discuss implications for the theory of gratitude and religion and methods for capturing genuine data on private behaviors like prayer.

Inside the Wandering Mind: Self-Referential Processing and Spontaneous Thoughts in Individuals Vulnerable to Depression

Spontaneous thoughts are a window into one's mind, as they offer rich information about ongoing psychological processes and value systems. We accessed the contents of these thoughts using a free association paradigm combined with natural language processing techniques to examine how happiness is associated with what people think about and prioritize in daily life. Our analyses revealed that participants (n = 210 from the US/UK) with higher subjective well-being, particularly those with more frequent positive affect, generated thoughts semantically more similar to 'friend,' but not to 'money.' A similar pattern was also found in an independent sample (n = 350 from South Korea), showing consistency of the findings across different cultural contexts. Notably, the semantic similarity of participants' generated thoughts to 'friend' predicted the extent to which participants prioritized social relationships over monetary gains in a realistic dilemma task. By exploring individuals' minds with a computational approach, our work elucidates how the value of social relationships is manifested in spontaneous thought contents and everyday decisions, providing insights into the sources of happiness.

Remembering and forgetting: A dynamic social retrieval theory of posttraumatic stress.

Spontaneous thoughts, occupying much of one's awake time in daily life, are often colored by emotional qualities. While spontaneous thoughts have been associated with various neural correlates, the relationship between subjective qualities of ongoing experiences and the brain's sensitivity to bodily signals (i.e., interoception) remains largely unexplored. Given the well-established role of interoception in emotion, clarifying this relationship may elucidate how processes relevant to mental health, such as arousal and anxiety, are regulated. We used EEG and ECG to measure the heartbeat-evoked potential (HEP), an index of interoceptive processing, while 51 adult participants (34 males, 20 females) visually fixated on a cross image and let their minds wander freely. At pseudorandom intervals, participants reported their momentary level of arousal. This measure of affective arousal was highly variable within and between individuals but was statistically unrelated to several markers of physiological arousal, including the heart rate, heart rate variability, time on task, and EEG alpha power at posterior electrodes. A cluster-based permutation analysis revealed that the HEP amplitude was increased during low relative to high affective arousal in a set of frontal electrodes during the 340-356 ms window after heartbeat onset. This HEP effect was more pronounced in individuals who reported high, relative to low, levels of trait anxiety. Together, our results offer novel evidence that at varying levels of trait anxiety, the brain differentially modulates sensitivity to bodily signals in coordination with the momentary, spontaneous experience of affective arousal-a mechanism that may operate independently of physiological arousal.

ABSTRACT Diary and laboratory-based studies of Involuntary Autobiographical Memories (IAMs) have demonstrated the importance of verbal cues in bringing these memories to conscious awareness. These methods have been less frequently applied to the study of repetitive, unwanted Intrusive Memories (IMs), and less is known about the cues for this type of memory. The present studies represent the first investigation of verbal cueing for participants’ own IMs under controlled laboratory conditions. The results of Study 1 showed that it was possible to elicit IMs, nominated by non-clinical participants before the study, by engaging them in a simple vigilance task with a steady stream of incidental verbal cues. Moreover, more IMs (and spontaneous thoughts including IAMs) were elicited in the condition with incidental verbal cues than in the control condition with less meaningful stimuli (maths calculations). The findings were replicated and extended in Study 2, which demonstrated more clearly the importance of personalised cues, overlapping with the contents of nominated IMs, in eliciting self-nominated IMs in the laboratory. The findings have implications for ongoing theoretical debates about the relationship of IMs to IAMs and suggest that real-life IMs experienced by the general population can be studied as analogue intrusions present in PTSD.

Our spontaneous thoughts encompass various dimensions, such as task-relatedness (off vs. on task), and thought orientation (internal vs. external). However, their distinction remains unclear. Our study addresses this issue by focusing on their timescales at both the behavioral level (using fast and slow finger tapping) and the neural level (using EEG) using two independent datasets (N = 84 and 35). Behavioral results revealed a double dissociation: Task-relatedness was linked to fast tapping only, whereas thought orientation was associated with slow tapping only. At the neural level, we assessed topographic similarity in EEG to quantify the temporal influence of past neural activity on current ones. Task-relatedness modulated topographic similarity only during fast tapping, while thought orientation did so only during slow tapping. Critically, topographic similarity was phase-based, as shown by its correlation with phase-locking value and the loss of associations with thought after phase-shuffling. This indicates that the neural signatures of both thought dimensions are strongly phase-dependent. Finally, we demonstrate that nonlinearity plays a distinct role mediating the impact of different timescales (slow and fast finger tapping) on spontaneous thoughts at both behavioral (precision error) and neural levels (topographic similarity). Overall, these results demonstrate that task-relatedness is associated with short timescales, whereas thought orientation is associated with long timescales. This highlights how distinct temporal dynamics shape different spontaneous thought dimensions on both their behavioral and neural features.

Fluctuations in the presence, experiential quality and contents of consciousness occur naturally during sleep and wakefulness and are core features of the healthy human mind. The purpose of this article is to consider the possibility that such fluctuations, including mind wandering and dreaming, which we refer to collectively as spontaneous thoughts and experiences (STE), may also be important elements of experience in certain patients with disorders of consciousness (DoC). The presence of these states may have urgent implications for DoC diagnosis, which centres on the detection of consciousness. Furthermore, learning more about STE in DoC may provide insight into subjective experience and quality of life in DoC, about which little is currently known. Given the challenges that exist in studying conscious experience in this population, much of the evidence about STE we consider is indirect and involves triangulation from the healthy population and other brain-injured patients. The evidence we consider is inconclusive, but it indicates that the occurrence of mind wandering and dreaming in DoC is a real possibility that, because of its important implications in these patients, requires further research. We argue that, given the possible life-or-death consequences of diagnosis in DoC, it is of pressing importance to use diagnostic measures that are sensitive to these internally directed forms of conscious experience. We also consider some lines of research that may deepen our understanding of STE in DoC, and how further knowledge about these states may impact inferences about quality of life in this population.

Validity of the think-aloud procedure in comparison to other methods for studying the phenomenological features and memory of spontaneous thought.

Cognitive functions emerge from the dynamic interplay of distributed, large-scale brain networks. Functional connectivity (FC) reflects stable brain organization and general cognitive abilities, while also capturing individual variations in transient cognitive states. Analyzing data from 1,717 participants, we show that rich and diverse spontaneous thought profiles align with distinct patterns of functional network integration. Evocative profiles were linked to the integration of self-awareness, executive, and visual networks; vigilant profile to salience and sensorimotor networks integration; and fluctuating profile to executive networks integration. Conversely, visual and verbal-predominant profiles were associated with the segregation of visual and language networks, respectively. Covering the full spectrum of observed spontaneous thought profiles, these findings reconceptualize the resting-state as a dynamic, distributed pattern of FC, varying across individuals and defined by the intricate balance of functional network integration and segregation, rather than a simple 'default mode network.'

Spontaneous thoughts, occupying much of one’s awake time in daily life, are often colored by emotional qualities. While spontaneous thoughts have been associated with various neural correlates, the relationship between subjective qualities of ongoing experiences and the brain’s sensitivity to bodily signals (i.e., interoception) remains largely unexplored. Given the well-established role of interoception in emotion, clarifying this relationship may elucidate how processes relevant to mental health, such as arousal and anxiety, are regulated. We used EEG and ECG to measure the heartbeat evoked potential (HEP), an index of interoceptive processing, while 51 adult participants (34 male, 20 female) visually fixated on a cross image and let their minds wander freely. At pseudo-random intervals, participants reported their momentary level of arousal. This measure of affective arousal was highly variable within and between individuals but was statistically unrelated to several markers of physiological arousal, including heart rate, heart rate variability, time on task, and EEG alpha power at posterior electrodes. A cluster-based permutation analysis revealed that the HEP amplitude was increased during low relative to high affective arousal in a set of frontal electrodes during the 340 – 356 millisecond window after heartbeat onset. This HEP effect was more pronounced in individuals who reported high, relative to low, levels of trait anxiety. Together, our results offer novel evidence that at varying levels of trait anxiety, the brain differentially modulates sensitivity to bodily signals in coordination with the momentary, spontaneous experience of affective arousal—a mechanism that may operate independently of physiological arousal.

Abstract Spontaneous thoughts and experiences, such as dreaming and mind wandering, form a significant part of our conscious mental lives. Yet, the precise phenomenological and content-related similarities and differences between dreaming and waking mind wandering remain insufficiently understood. In this study, we address this gap by comparing 340 dreaming and mind wandering questionnaire responses that depending on the answers of participants ranged from 13 to 27 dimensions. While previous research primarily used laboratory settings and probe-caught methods, we used a self-caught design to capture spontaneous experiences in daily life. Data were explored with mixed-effect binary logistic regression models, which resulted in identifying dimensions that significantly predicted either dreaming or mind wandering and can therefore be considered as differences between both states. In addition, the relative frequency distributions of all dimensions were used to illustrate similarities between dreaming and mind wandering. Finally, we compared a subgroup of dreaming and mind wandering containing visual imagery. Visual and immersive imagery and scene-organization are central features of dream phenomenology and at the centre of leading dream theories. To further investigate the immersive quality of dreaming and mind wandering, we considered features related to self-experience such as Feeling of Presence and Self-perspective. Overall results showed a complex picture of differences and similarities between dreaming and mind wandering that can inform future research and help identify along which dimension dreaming might be considered as intensified compared to mind wandering.

Research has shown that the activation of semantic memories leads to the activation of autobiographical memories. Known as semantic-to-autobiographical memory priming, this form of priming has been demonstrated to prime involuntary autobiographical memories with a wide variety of different stimuli (e.g., words, pictures, sentences, sounds, tactile stimuli, etc.). Our goal in the current study was to extend semantic-to-autobiographical priming to two unexplored processes, activities and thoughts. In Experiment 1, we explored priming from activities and thoughts by having participants imagine activities (e.g., imagine yourself exercising) and think about topics (e.g., think about holidays). These priming sessions occurred in between vigilance task trials. The vigilance task measures involuntary autobiographical memories by presenting participants with slides that contain lines and word phrases. Participants are instructed to note when slides contain vertical lines, as well as note if they experience spontaneous thoughts or memories. The slides used in our study contained phrases that were both related and unrelated to the primes. In Experiment 2, the priming phase and the vigilance task phase were separated by several minutes. The results of both experiments showed that primed participants produced more involuntary memories related to the content of the imagined activity and thought primes than control participants, who received imagined activity and thought primes that were unrelated to the vigilance task cues. The results support the idea that activities and thoughts can influence the production of involuntary autobiographical memories in everyday life. The results also support the idea that semantic-to-autobiographical priming is diverse.

The nature and frequency of spontaneous thoughts play a critical role in cognitive processes like perception, decision-making, attention, and memory. Deficits in these processes are also greatly associated with the development and maintenance of psychopathology. However, the underlying cognitive dynamics of free and stuck spontaneous thought remain unclear, as these often occur in the absence of measurable behaviors. Here, we analyze free word-association data using attractor-state dynamic modeling, which conceptualizes stuck spontaneous thought as navigating a multidimensional semantic space while in the presence of strong attractor locations. Word-association data was collected from an exploratory sample (N1 = 65), a first replication sample (N2 = 79), and, following pre-registration, a second replication sample (N3 = 222). After the data was embedded into a 3-dimensional semantic space and fit by our dynamic model, unsupervised learning consistently grouped data into four clusters across all independent samples. These clusters were characterized by two distinct patterns of stuck negative thinking, a pattern of protective positive thinking, and a pattern of flexible mind-wandering. Our results support a method for modeling spontaneous thought and isolate distinct sub-types that may not be accessible using retrospective self-report methods. We discuss implications for clinical and cognitive science.

Background. The network principle of cognitive phenomena implementation in the brain presupposes self-organization of distributed neuronal elements into a network for processing information demanded by the organism at a given moment. The cerebral networks that form during rest and are associated with spontaneous associative flows are of particular interest. Objective. The aim of this research was to investigate spontaneous associative flows at rest in the context of left or right-sided compression of the hippocampal region. Study Participants. The research involved 16 patients with benign meningiomas that mildly compress the medio-basal regions of the temporal lobe in the area of the hippocampus. The average age was 47.5 years (SD = 8.3; 12 females; all participants were right-handed). One group comprised 9 patients diagnosed with left-sided tumor location (referred to as “grLS”), while the other group included 7 patients with right-sided tumor location (“grRS”). The groups were comparable in terms of morphometric characteristics of the tumors, degree of hemisphere compression, and socio-demographic factors. Methods. The study consisted of two sessions at rest, each lasting 3 minutes. Prior to each session, the patient listened to a voice record of a modulating instruction. Immediately after the session, the patient provided a spontaneous narrative and engaged in a structured discussion about the spontaneous associations experienced during the resting period. The entire conversation was recorded and subsequently transcribed into text format. Results. Spontaneous associative flows had lateral specificity. In cases of left hemisphere compression, spontaneous thoughts, emotions, and memories were typically linked to the awareness of the moment of their formation, associated with specific events, and had a conscious border with fantasy plots. With right hemisphere compression, the flow was less controllable, associations were related to generalized memories, in which one’s own experience was mixed with information from any other sources and fantasy elements, and transitions had no boundaries. In the left hemisphere group (grLS), associations were predominantly visual and verbal in nature, whereas in the right hemisphere group (grRS), polymodal flows were recorded. Conclusions. When the right hemisphere is compressed, the flow of associations is poorly controlled, transitions between real and fantasy elements have no boundaries, being combined in the same plot. When the left hemisphere is compressed, memories, as a rule, are tied to specific episodes of one's own experience, the arbitrariness component is more pronounced in them, and the flow elements have conscious boundaries.

Objective: This study aims to examine how retrospective thinking (positive/negative past, past acceptance) and rumination contribute to depression in elderlies, with negative spontaneous thoughts playing a mediating role. Methods and Materials: This study utilized a descriptive-correlational research design and cross-sectional research approach, employing structural modeling. The research focused on elderly individuals in Tehran from July to October 2023 who resided in elderly care centers. A total of 114 elderly participants, including both men and women, were selected through convenience methods. Descriptive statistics were conducted using SPSS version 27, while data analysis and standard coefficients were computed using JASP version 0.18.1 software. The significance level set for the study was 0.05. Findings: The findings revealed a positive and significant relationship between Rumination and Depression variables when considering the mediating role of negative spontaneous thoughts (β=0.026, p<0.001). Similarly, a positive and significant relationship was observed between Negative past and Depression when considering negative spontaneous thoughts as a mediator (β=0.030, p=0.026). The connection between Positive past and Past acceptance was not significant, with a p-value greater than 0.05. All the model fit indices were confirmed. The SRMR index value was 0.069 and the NFI was 0.796. Similarly, the Q2 values were above zero. Conclusion: The primary finding from the study suggests that addressing rumination and negative spontaneous thoughts, promoting past acceptance, and fostering positive thoughts can help alleviate depression in the elderly population. This highlights the importance of addressing mental health in the elderly population to improve their overall well-being.

Background: Type 2 diabetes is a chronic medical condition characterized by relative insulin imbalance due to pancreatic beta cell dysfunction and insulin resistance in target organs. Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral rehabilitation treatment based on stress immunization training on metacognitions and coping styles in women with type 2 diabetes. Methods: This quasi-experimental study utilized a pretest-posttest design with a control group. The statistical population consisted of women with type 2 diabetes in Sari. A total of 30 women were purposefully selected from patients referred to the office of Dr. Mashayekh Bakhshi, a specialist in endocrinology and metabolism. These participants were randomly assigned to experimental (n = 15) and control (n = 15) groups. Data were collected using the Metacognition questionnaire and the Coping Styles questionnaire. Results: Demographic findings showed that the mean (and standard deviation) age of participants was 32.933 (7.759) in the experimental group and 36.733 (9.254) in the control group. The results indicated that cognitive-behavioral rehabilitation treatment based on stress immunization training significantly improved metacognitions and coping styles in women with type 2 diabetes (P < 0.05). Conclusions: Cognitive-behavioral rehabilitation based on stress immunization training encourages patients with diabetes to reduce negative spontaneous thoughts related to depression and correct their self-talk. This process reduces negative metacognitions, adjusts emotional strategies, and enhances problem-solving strategies in patients with diabetes, ultimately alleviating their challenges.

Spontaneous mind wandering has been implicated as a feature of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and researchers have wondered if spontaneous remembering is also a feature of ADHD. In this study, we compared spontaneous cognition, principally involuntary autobiographical memories, in participants who scored inside the ADHD range on BAARS-IV to those who scored outside of the ADHD range. In Study 1, participants reported their involuntary memories and spontaneous thoughts on a laboratory measure of involuntary memory (the vigilance task), as well as estimated their daily involuntary memory frequencies on a separate questionnaire. The results showed that ADHD range participants did not differ from non-ADHD range participants in reports of involuntary memories and spontaneous thoughts on the vigilance task, but ADHD range participants estimated higher daily involuntary memory frequencies than non-ADHD range participants on the questionnaire. Additionally, on the questionnaire, ADHD participants reported that their involuntary memories were less positive and more repetitive than non-ADHD participants. In Study 2, participants recorded their naturally occurring involuntary memories in a structured diary for 48 hours. The results showed that ADHD range participants had more involuntary memories than non-ADHD range participants, and they also reported that they experienced them as less positive.