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

Supplemental Material for A Wandering (Older) Mind Is a Happy Mind: Age Moderates the Combined Effects of Mind Wandering and Executive Function on Momentary Affective State

Growing evidence suggests that healthy aging is reliably associated with a positivity bias, benefiting affective well-being in older age. The socioemotional selectivity theory suggests that the positivity bias is subserved by top-down attentional processes, whereas the dynamic integration theory suggests it is subserved by bottom-up attentional processes. However, little is known about whether the age-related positivity bias manifests to the same extent in individuals with lower levels of executive function, such as those with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. It is also unclear whether the positivity bias is observed in naturalistic contexts and specifically how momentary attentional states in daily life, such as on-task attention, or mind wandering (intentionally or unintentionally), may moderate the positivity bias. To address these questions, we recruited 101 adults (aged 19-79) with self-reported attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and probed their momentary attentional and affective states during everyday life, six times daily for 7 days. Using attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptom levels as an index of executive dysfunction, we examined the interaction between age, executive function, and momentary attentional state in predicting momentary affective valence. Results indicate that older adults showed a more positive relationship between executive dysfunction and affective valence during unintentional mind wandering (compared with on-task attention), whereas younger adults exhibited the opposite pattern. Our findings provide preferential support for the dynamic integration theory rather than the socioemotional selectivity theory account of the positivity bias and highlight the moderating effect of age on a complex relationship between executive dysfunction, momentary attentional state, and affective valence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

This study traced the neurophysiological signals of fluctuating attention and task-related processing to ascertain the mechanistic basis of transient strategic shifts between competing task focus and mind-wandering, as expressed by the 'exploitation/exploration' framework, and explored how they are differentially affected with age. Thirty-four younger (16 female, mean age 22 years) and 34 healthy older (20 female, mean age 71 years) adults performed the Gradual Contrast Change Detection task; monitoring a continuously presented flickering annulus for intermittent gradual contrast reductions and responding to experience sampling probes to discriminate the nature of their thoughts at discrete moments. Electroencephalography and pupillometry were concurrently recorded during target- and probe-related intervals. Older adults tracked the downward stimulus trajectory with greater sensory integrity (reduced target SSVEP amplitude) and demonstrated earlier initiation of evidence accumulation (earlier onset CPP), attenuated variability in the attentional signal (posterior alpha) and more robust phasic pupillary responses to the target, suggesting steadier attentional engagement with age. Younger adults only exhibited intermittent sensory encoding, indexed by greater variability in the sensory (SSVEP) and attentional (alpha) signals before mind-wandering relative to focused states. Attentional variability was accompanied by disrupted behavioural performance and reduced task-related neural processing, independent of age group. Together, this elucidates distinct performance strategies employed by both groups. Older adults suspended mind-wandering and implemented an exploitative oscillation strategy to circumvent their reduced cognitive resources and allay potential behavioural costs. Conversely, younger adults exhibited greater exploration through mind-wandering, utilising their greater cognitive resources to flexibly alternate between competing goal-directed and mind-wandering strategies, with limited costs.

The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us about Distraction

Supplemental Material for When Is a Wandering Mind Unhappy? The Role of Thought Valence

ABSTRACTA wandering mind is not always a creative mind. Anecdotes about ideas spontaneously entering awareness during walks, showers, and other off‐task activities are plenty. The science behind it, however, is still inconclusive. Creativity might result from how thought context—whether thoughts are on‐task or off‐task—relates to thought dynamics—how thoughts unfold. To explore this, study 1 (n = 85) surveyed creative professionals about a single idea they had earlier in the day. The spontaneity of thoughts positively correlated with self‐reported creativity, whereas off‐task thoughts or doing something else did not. Study 2 (n = 180) replicated these findings in a student sample during an idea generation task and added that free movement of thoughts also correlates with self‐reported originality during idea generation. As indicated by expert ratings, no relationship of thought dynamics and thought context was found with population‐level creativity. Herewith, this study suggests that thought dynamics, rather than thought context, explain the often suggested relationship between mind wandering and creativity.

The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction by Jamie Kreiner (review)

Objective:Research evaluating mindfulness and cognition has produced mixed results. However, variability in mindfulness has not been previously evaluated as a predictor of cognitive ability. This study evaluated the relation between intra-individual variability (IIV) in mindfulness and cognitive performance.Participants and Methods:274 university participants (M=19 years old, SD=1.5; 72.6% female, 67.2% White, 25.6% African American, 3.3% Asian American, 1.1% Hispanic American) completed the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) and the CNS Vital Signs computerized test battery. IIV was computed from the FFMQ facet T-scores. Additionally, high and low cognitive performance groups were formed from the top and bottom 16% of the sample using the neurocognition index (NCI) score from CNS Vital Signs (N=52 high NCI performance and N=46 low NCI performance).Results:Pearson r correlations were used to evaluate the relation between mindfulness IIV and CNS Vital Signs domains. Mindfulness IIV was negatively associated with performance on the domains of psychomotor speed [r=-.18; p=.003], composite memory [r=-.14; p=.023] and verbal memory [r=-.15; p=.015]. For the high NCI group, IIV mindfulness was positively associated with cognitive flexibility [r=.31; p=.024], executive functioning [r=.33; p=.016] and was negatively related to visual memory [r=-.28; p=.043]. For the low NCI group, IIV mindfulness was negatively related to psychomotor speed [r=-.49; p<.001], composite memory [r=-.32; p=.033] and verbal memory [r=-.31; p=.038]. There was no relation found for individual FFMQ facet scores and CNS Vital Sign domains.Conclusions:Increased consistency in self-reported mindfulness (lower IIV) was associated with greater processing speed and memory performance in the overall sample. However, the relation been mindfulness IIV and cognitive performance changed greatly in high NCI performers compared to low NCI performers. The low NCI group may be a proxy for poor effort which would explain why more variable self-reported mindfulness was associated with worse performance for processing speed and memory and this could be driving the results for the overall sample. However, our findings for the high NCI performance group are unique and suggest an association between increased variability in mindfulness facets and improved cognitive flexibility and executive functioning. Further study of mindfulness variability and aspects of executive functioning is warranted.

The specter of mindfulness has been haunting psychological science and its self-help applications. Mindfulness, we are to understand, is a special state in which the mind is gathered up into itself, thereby achieving an autonomous state that is potentially pleasant, probably supportive of subjective well-being and health, and possibly conducive to the cultivation of useful life skills (Bishop et al., 2004). The publication of Jon Kabat-Zinn's (1990) hefty volume Full Catastrophe Living was a watershed event that motivated millions of seekers and healers as well as many academics to embark on a search for this beneficent if elusive mental state. Eric Loucks, a professor in the School of Public Health at Brown University, has developed a course on mindfulness for his students, and he has given a TEDx talk on the matter. He presents his case for the educational use of mindfulness training in The Mindful College Student: How to Succeed, Boost Well-Being & Build the Life You Want at University & Beyond.The contemporary interest in mindfulness continues the old quest for an integration of the philosophy and science of the West with the wisdom of the East (Schopenhauer, 1819; Suzuki & Fromm, 1960; Watts, 1957). These geographic designations have lost much of their acuity, but their echoes remain. Now as then, there is in the West a sense of loss, a mourning for what is magical and mystical. The East still has some of what the Enlightenment has exorcised in the West. Loucks, like Kabat-Zinn, invokes the promise of a synthesis, and the late Thich Nhat Hanh plays the role of patron saint (Bryant, 2022), blessing the Western quest for self-improvement with the effortless Zen of the dharma (e.g., Thich, 1975). Yet, to some Western eyes, an epigraph such as Thich's points to a place where the profound and the nonsensical are one. But okay, it's a Zen thing.Thich's epigram can be found in his preface to Kabat-Zinn's 467-page tome, whose title is surprisingly nondharmaic. As Kabat-Zinn explains, we owe the powerful image of full-catastrophe living to Nikos Kazantzakis and his towering character of Alexis Zorbas, or Αλέξης Ζορμπάς (Kazantzakis, 1946/1952; Krueger, 2015). Reflecting on his bygone family life, Zorbas recalls that yes, he had a wife, a home, children—the full catastrophe! The character of Zorbas is the antithesis to the pensive and Zen-like narrator, a.k.a. “the boss.” Before mindfulness became de rigueur, Kazantzakis experimented with the dialectic of his two characters to explore the interplay of Eastern and Western perspectives. He never achieved a synthesis. Perhaps to his credit he surrendered to a life suspended between the poles of contemplation and action.Kabat-Zinn's project had an immense impact on psychotherapy and on how lay audiences view psychology. It created an industry of mindfulness studies and practices. The initial mission of this project was focused and pragmatic: to help people live with chronic pain and to help the stressed-out to decelerate, relax, and “chill.” Since then, the mission has been creeping. Today, mindfulness is hoped to be beneficial in all manner of ways, a sentiment expressed full-on in the title and the byline of Loucks's book.The challenges of the mindfulness paradigm are well known. The first challenge is to achieve conceptual clarity. What is mindfulness? Is there a unique psychological state (or states) going beyond traditional concepts of self-awareness, attention, or a relaxed state of mental rest? Loucks uses two popular definitions. According to one definition, mindfulness is a state in which attention and awareness are focused to a point, which may be a physical location in the body, a murmured mantra, or a visual image. According to another definition, mindfulness consists of a nonjudgmental attitude toward the contents floating through consciousness. Loucks lays emphasis on the notion of anchor points, especially in relation to the all-important breathing practices, while also endorsing the nonjudgmental attitude toward all variants of mental contents, such as sensations, emotions, desires, and thoughts. As Loucks leaves it to the reader to identify a suitable anchor point, one might consider—with a nod to Japanese tradition as brought to us by Graf Dürckheim (1956/1962)—a spot an inch or two below the navel (see Loucks, p. 18). Here lies the essence of grounded being says Dürckheim, the German count who attained the title of Zen master. What, by contrast, is the big toe's claim to prominence?No practice-oriented book written for nonexperts can be expected to solve this conceptual riddle, or the other one, which asks, “What, exactly, is the part of the mind that observes its own contents?” The riddle of self-awareness is ancient, much discussed by philosophers, psychologists, and theologians (think Genesis!), and it still eludes a solution (Humphrey, 2023; Krueger, Heck, & Athenstaedt, 2017). With a sleight of hand, William James (1890/1950) declared that the observing part of the self is the “I,” and the observed part is the “Me.” His solution was pragmatic at the cost of a hard-to-justify dualism. David Hume (1738/2000) tried to observe his own I but failed. James would say Hume failed by necessity. His, James's, conclusion required a kind of dualism Hume would have rejected, and it lacked evidentiary support, but it allowed psychologists and laypeople respectively to get on with the job of doing research and living. Hoca Camide, in the second epigraph, notes the self-perceptual paradox in a gently mocking tone.The claim—or hope, rather—that the mind can observe itself is appealing but strictly impossible. If attention and consciousness are serial affairs, the mind can call up memories of its own past activity, but it cannot observe itself in action in a way that the act of observation and that which is being observed are both represented at the same time (Baars, Geld, & Kozma, 2021; Newell & Simon, 1972). This is a categorical matter, and perhaps an obvious one. It must not be confused with the finding that the mind–brain system is capable of carrying out many operations at the same time and that it is able to retrieve a handful of items from working memory—one at a time (Miller, 1956). Conscious awareness, having emerged from a narrow filter, allows but one interpretation of a multistable perceptual display such as the Necker Cube (Attneave, 1971), and so it is with thoughts. The mind can thus not observe its own wandering; it can only note, from recent memories, that it has been wandering. Loucks, like others, does not condemn mind wandering. Mind wandering is associated with creativity (Irving, McGrath, Flynn, Glasser, & Mills, 2022; but see Murray, Liang, Brosowsky, & Seli, 2021), but it is also related to impaired performance and low mood (for a review see Mooneyham & Schooler, 2013). At any rate, the attitude of mindfulness forbids second-order judgments, such as self-recriminations for feeling lousy or ruminations about one's ruminations.Loucks advises readers and budding practitioners of mindfulness to gently bring back awareness to the focal point and the breathing associated with it. This is good and practical advice, but the logical puzzle remains. When the mind becomes aware of its gentle regulation of thought, that regulation has already happened. How then can the conscious intention of taking regulatory action be the cause of that regulation (Wegner, 2002; reviewed in Krueger, 2004)? Alas, the student of mindfulness practice need not worry about such epistemological thickets. The student is well served by Loucks's clear and methodical presentation.One attractive element of Loucks's presentation is the “STOP Mindfulness Practice” (p. 56). The acronym stands for Stop what you are doing, Take a breath, Observe your bodily experiences, and Proceed by doing something constructive. Loucks reports that this simple technique, while not necessarily improving well-being, protects the practitioner from a worsening of mental and emotional states during periods of stress, such as when students take exams or give in-class presentations. The main body of the book takes the reader through four arenas of mindfulness practice, each presented as an “opening”: the body, the heart, the mind, and the spirit. The imagery of opening refers to the idea that mindfulness makes mental contents that would otherwise remain hidden or implicit accessible to consciousness. Once accessibility is achieved, the idea is that these mental contents can be accepted and integrated without being judged. The body–heart–mind–spirit tetrad metaphorically represents sensations (e.g., pain), emotions (e.g., anger), and thoughts (e.g., visions of vengeance), but, well, the category of spirit turns out to be complicated. When Loucks gave his TEDx talk, which I attended, he came close to faltering just once: when he had to tell the audience what he meant by “spirit,” and do so in a few words. In the book, he notes unhelpfully that the spirit is “the nature of reality” (p. 5).With four levels of opening, Loucks goes for trialism plus one. With the distinction between body, soul, and spirit being traditional, he splits the soul into feelings and thoughts. Now what about the spirit? Should the spirit have any place at all in an evidence-based work grounded in psychological and medical science? To Loucks, the spirit is that “part of us where the emotions and consciousness dwell, in other words, the soul, or our true self” (p. 101). A critic wishing to go into deep conceptual analysis here would have to do some serious work, so I decided to let this go—which happens to be one of the ways to open the spirit. So, I will focus—with partial success—on a brief description and summary.Opening the spirit begins with access to the “true self” and continues with a recognition of “impermanence.” One wonders whether the true self is thought to be an immutable essence or if it is also impermanent. Next, there is the “disappearance of desire” and an opening to eight pairs of opposites (pain and pleasure, gain and loss, etc.). Wags have wondered whether we can wish to be desireless, but again, such waggishness distracts from the message. Loucks invites “you to work with the concept of desirelessness: just be who you are, letting go of attachment to sex, sleep, tasty food, money, power, fame, gain, pleasure, and praise” (p. 112). Let us please not do too well at this; otherwise, why get up in the morning? Then, there is a meditation on “cessation.” There is no birth and no death, as Thich Nhat Hanh observed—before he died in 2022. Loucks homes in on a cessation of ignorance, to be obtained by breathing out. Quoting a former student, who shared that “Nobody really dies because parts of them are in us” (p. 113), Loucks deconstructs the natural meaning of death to the point of meaninglessness. It appears to follow that a concept without meaning cannot be false. This sort of deconstruction then extends, with another nod to Thich Nhat Hanh, to the claim that the self does not exist. A nod to Eckhart Tolle (1999), the wise man from Westphalia, would also do, but Thich is cooler. At any rate, what are we to make of “the true self” from a few pages prior? In short, the chapter on opening the spirit is over the top and off the cliff. The presentation would have been stronger had it focused on meditation work addressing sensations, feelings, and thoughts, in plain English.Having hacked our way through this conceptual thicket, we are approaching the end of our Morgenlandfahrt, or Journey to the East (Hesse, 1932/1956), but not before considering the second challenge, which is the question of incremental validity. Loucks carefully lays a foundation of healthy living, noting the benefits of regular and sufficient sleep, a wholesome and diverse diet, and moderate and sustained exercise. Given that mindfulness practice requires a substantial investment of time and self-regulatory willpower, one hopes to be reassured that the practice yields significant incremental benefit. As well, it would be good to know whether the practice is superior to traditional alternatives such as cognitive–behavioral training, relaxation exercises, yoga, or the more traditional practices of stoicism (Joiner, 2017; reviewed in Krueger, 2018) or the pursuit of an Epicurean state of ataraxia (Dimitriadis, 2018; reviewed in Krueger, 2020), which seems rather similar to what Loucks et al. (2021, p. 604) call equipoise.Loucks does not attempt to answer these questions in the book and need not be required to do so. I therefore read Loucks et al. (2021). In a randomized trial study, the authors find that mindfulness training works with a medium effect size. Two features of the study make it clear that further research is necessary. First, the mindfulness training was extensive and multivariate, so that it is not clear whether college students training themselves will obtain enough benefit to “build the life [they] want at university and beyond.” Second, the outcome measures were also multivariate, comprising seven domains including an assessment of mindfulness itself, which arguably should have served as a manipulation check or as a mediator variable. Incidentally, the treatment group did not score significantly higher on this measure than did the control group, although there was an encouraging trend. In short, the study design has a bit of a kitchen-sink quality to it, with multiple aggregated interventions and measures. Perhaps, as Thich Nhat Hanh might have invited us to wonder, slow and steady breathing, with our gaze focused on our rising navel, would be enough.The question of breathing deserves an afternote. Advocates of mindfulness seem to rather unquestioningly (one is tempted to say “mindlessly”) assume the possibility of observing one's breath without changing it, or at least to assume that this feat can be accomplished with practice. Now, breathing is regulated by neuronal circuits in the medulla, which is just a few notches above the spinal cord. These circuits are ancient and autonomous. They work even when the rest of the skeletal musculature is paralyzed during REM sleep (Del Negro, Funk, & Feldman, 2018). Yet like that musculature, it is open to volitional control. We may hold our breath for a while or hyperventilate on purpose. A moment of self-observation suggests that as soon as we direct our attention to the activity of breathing, we alter the autonomous rhythm. In theory—and perhaps in long and dutiful practice—it may be possible to observe without doing (Graf Dürckheim reported that he pulled this off). But how would we know? We cannot, by definition, know what our breathing was or felt like before we looked at it. Steady and calm breathing, when the body is at rest, is a good thing on the face of it. But why must we bear witness?

Self-relevant concepts are major building blocks of spontaneous thought, and their dynamics in a natural stream of thought are likely to reveal one’s internal states that are important for mental health. Here, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment (n = 62) to examine brain representations and dynamics of self-generated concepts in the context of spontaneous thought using a newly developed free association–based thought sampling task. The dynamics of conceptual associations were predictive of individual differences in general negative affectivity, replicating across multiple datasets (n = 196). Reflecting on self-generated concepts strongly engaged brain regions linked to autobiographical memory, conceptual processes, emotion, and autonomic regulation, including the medial prefrontal and medial temporal subcortical structures. Multivariate pattern–based predictive modeling revealed that the neural representations of valence became more person-specific as the level of perceived self-relevance increased. Overall, this study sheds light on how self-generated concepts in spontaneous thought construct inner affective states and idiosyncrasies.

We propose an innovative approach to study Mind Wandering (MW), and we present an application of this methodology to study the effects of a Mindfulness-Oriented Meditation (MOM) training. We assessed individuals’ MW through a free association task and an attentional task with thought-probes combined with a questionnaire for the phenomenological characteristic of each MW episode. We used the Temperament and Character Inventory to assess participants’ personality traits and their associations with measures of MW. Our study was limited by the course of the Covid-19 pandemic and only nine healthy young individuals completed the testing sessions, which were carried out before and after the MOM training. After MOM, participants showed fewer repetitive and self-relevant thoughts and indices of better performance in the attentional task; the linguistic analysis of participants’ free associations showed lower verbal productivity and a decrease in utterances that expressed anxiety/stress. Overall, we foresee that future studies could replicate our preliminary findings with larger samples and in a period without a global health emergency. This multilevel approach to the study of MW may allow researchers to gain a broader view of the phenomenon, considering its occurrence, qualitative characteristics, impact on cognitive tasks, malleability via mindfulness or other psychological interventions, and relations with personality traits.

Mind-wandering has become a captivating topic for cognitive neuroscientists. By now, it is reasonably well described in terms of its phenomenology and the large-scale neural networks that support it. However, we know very little about what neurobiological mechanisms trigger a mind-wandering episode and sustain the mind-wandering brain state. Here, we focus on the role of ascending neuromodulatory systems (i.e. acetylcholine, noradrenaline, serotonin and dopamine) in shaping mind-wandering. We advance the hypothesis that the hippocampal sharp wave-ripple (SWR) is a compelling candidate for a brain state that can trigger mind-wandering episodes. This hippocampal rhythm, which occurs spontaneously in quiescent behavioural states, is capable of propagating widespread activity in the default network and is functionally associated with recollective, associative, imagination and simulation processes. The occurrence of the SWR is heavily dependent on hippocampal neuromodulatory tone. We describe how the interplay of neuromodulators may promote the hippocampal SWR and trigger mind-wandering episodes. We then identify the global neuromodulatory signatures that shape the evolution of the mind-wandering brain state. Under our proposed framework, mind-wandering emerges due to the interplay between neuromodulatory systems that influence the transitions between brain states, which either facilitate, or impede, a wandering mind. This article is part of the theme issue 'Offline perception: voluntary and spontaneous perceptual experiences without matching external stimulation'.

People often fail to keep their mind from wandering. Here, we examine how the tendency to mind wander is affected by people's beliefs, or lay theories. Building on research on lay theories and self-regulation, we test whether differences in people's beliefs about the extent to which mind wandering is controllable affect thought control strategies and mind-wandering rates in daily life and the laboratory. We develop a new scale to assess control-related beliefs about mind wandering. Scores on the scale predict mind wandering (Study 1) and intrusive thoughts (Study 2) in everyday life, thought control strategies and dysfunctional responses to unwanted thoughts (Study 2), and mind wandering during reading in the laboratory (Studies 3-6). Moreover, experimentally induced lay theories affect mind-wandering rates during reading (Studies 4 and 5). Finally, the effectiveness of strategies people can use to reduce their mind wandering depends on their lay theories (Studies 2 and 6).

During the practice of meditation, the tendency of the mind to wander away from the object of focus is ubiquitous. The occurrence of mind wandering in the context of meditation provides individuals a unique and intimate opportunity to closely examine the nature of the wandering mind by cultivating an awareness of ongoing thought patterns, while simultaneously aiming to cultivate equanimity (evenness of temper or disposition) and compassion toward the content of thoughts, interpretations, and bodily sensations. In this article we provide a theoretical framework that highlights the neurocognitive mechanisms by which contemplative practices influence the neural and phenomenological processes underlying spontaneous thought. Our theoretical model focuses on several converging mechanisms: the role of meta-awareness in facilitating an increased moment-to-moment awareness of spontaneous thought processes, the effects of meditation practice on key structures underlying both the top-down cognitive processes and bottom-up sensory processes implicated in attention and emotion regulation, and the influence of contemplative practice on the neural substrates underlying perception and perceptual decoupling.

Web Exclusives7 May 2019Annals Story Slam - Oh, My Wandering MindFREEBielose C. Konwe, MDBielose C. Konwe, MDSearch for more papers by this authorAuthor, Article, and Disclosure Informationhttps://doi.org/10.7326/W19-0005 SectionsAboutVisual Abstract ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail Video. Annals Story Slam - Oh, My Wandering Mind "Oh, My Wandering Mind," by Dr. Bielose Konwe (Duration 6:30)Building on the popular Annals feature “On Being a Doctor,” storytellers share stories about the experience of doctoring on video.For more videos from and information on Annals Story Slam, visit go.annals.org/StorySlam. Comments0 CommentsSign In to Submit A Comment Author, Article, and Disclosure InformationAffiliations: This article was published at Annals.org on 12 April 2019. PreviousarticleNextarticle Advertisement FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Metrics 7 May 2019Volume 170, Issue 9Page: SS1 ePublished: 12 April 2019 Issue Published: 7 May 2019 Copyright & PermissionsCopyright © 2019 by American College of Physicians. All Rights Reserved.Loading ...

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Pedler, Strangers in a New Land: What Archaeology Reveals about the First Americans, 299Ageing: A Very Short Introduction, by N. A. Pachana, 489Albuquerque U. P., et al. (eds.), Evolutionary Ethnobiology, 187Alexander D. E., On the Wing: Insects, Pterosaurs, Birds, Bats and the Evolution of Animal Flight, 190Algebraic and Discrete Mathematical Methods for Modern Biology, ed. by R. S. Robeva, 86Allmon W. D., and M. M. Yacobucci (eds.), Species and Speciation in the Fossil Record, 461Amphibians of Costa Rica: A Field Guide, by T. Leenders, 487Andrews B., et al. (eds.), Budding Yeast: A Laboratory Manual, 336Andrews P., An Ape’s View of Human Evolution, 469Animal Athletes: An Ecological and Evolutionary Approach, by D. J. Irschick and T. E. Higham, 99Animal Physiology, by R. W. Hill et al., 4th ed., 330Animal Signaling and Function: An Integrative Approach, ed. by D. J. Irschick et al., 98Animal Vigilance: Monitoring Predators and Competitors, by G. Beauchamp, 100Ape’s View of Human Evolution, by P. Andrews, 469Approaches to Plant Evolutionary Ecology, by G. P. Cheplick, 339Aquiloni L., and E. Tricarico (eds.), Social Recognition in Invertebrates: The Knowns and the Unknowns, 326Arc of Life: Evolution and Health Across the Life Course, ed. by G. Jasienska et al., 320Arresting Contagion: Science, Policy, and Conflicts Over Animal Disease Control, by A. L. Olmstead and P. W. Rhode, 456Asian Pitvipers: Breeding Experience & Wildlife, by D. Visser, 112Austral Ark: The State of Wildlife in Australia and New Zealand, ed. by A. Stow et al., 315Australian Longhorn Beetles (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae), by A. Ślipiński and H. E. Escalona, Vol. 2 (Subfamily Cerambycinae), 208Australian Wildlife after Dark, by M. Robinson and B. Thomson, 345Ayala F. J., Evolution, Explanation, Ethics, and Aesthetics: Towards a Philosophy of Biology, 172Baby Gorilla: Photographic and Descriptive Atlas of Skeleton, Muscles and Internal Organs: Including CT Scans and Comparison with Adult Gorillas, Humans and Other Primates, by R. Diogo et al., 199Backcasts: A Global History of Fly Fishing and Conservation, ed. by S. Snyder et al., 458Bacterial Spore: From Molecules to Systems, ed. by A. Driks and P. Eichenberger, 337Baggott J., Origins: The Scientific Story of Creation, 85Barash D. P., Out of Eden: The Surprising Consequences of Polygamy, 322Barker G., Beyond Biofatalism: Human Nature for an Evolving World, 192Barrett S. C. H., et al. (eds.), Invasion Genetics: The Baker and Stebbins Legacy, 334Basics in Human Evolution, ed. by M. P. Muehlenbein, 95Bats of Somalia and Neighbouring Areas, by B. Lanza et al., 112Bauerfeind R., et al., Zoonoses: Infectious Diseases Transmissible between Animals and Humans, 4th ed., 346Baum D. 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The tendency for the mind to wander to concerns other than the task at hand is a fundamental feature of human cognition, yet the consequences of variations in its experiential content for psychological functioning are not well understood. Here, we adopted multivariate pattern analysis to simultaneously decompose experience-sampling data and neural functional-connectivity data, which revealed dimensions that simultaneously describe individual variation in self-reported experience and default-mode-network connectivity. We identified dimensions corresponding to traits of positive-habitual thoughts and spontaneous task-unrelated thoughts. These dimensions were uniquely related to aspects of cognition, such as executive control and the ability to generate information in a creative fashion, and independently distinguished well-being measures. These data provide the most convincing evidence to date for an ontological view of the mind-wandering state as encompassing a broad range of different experiences and show that this heterogeneity underlies mind wandering’s complex relationship to psychological functioning.

The Wandering Mind: How the Brain Allows Us to Mentally Wander Off to Another Time and Place

Daydream believer