Citation

McVay JC, Kane MJ. J. Exp. Psychol. Learn. Mem. Cogn. 2009; 35(1): 196-204.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27402-6170, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, American Psychological Association)

DOI

10.1037/a0014104

PMID

19210090

PMCID

PMC2750806

Abstract

On the basis of the executive-attention theory of working memory capacity (WMC; e.g., M. J. Kane, A. R. A. Conway, D. Z. Hambrick, & R. W. Engle, 2007), the authors tested the relations among WMC, mind wandering, and goal neglect in a sustained attention to response task (SART; a go/no-go task). In 3 SART versions, making conceptual versus perceptual processing demands, subjects periodically indicated their thought content when probed following rare no-go targets. SART processing demands did not affect mind-wandering rates, but mind-wandering rates varied with WMC and predicted goal-neglect errors in the task; furthermore, mind-wandering rates partially mediated the WMC-SART relation, indicating that WMC-related differences in goal neglect were due, in part, to variation in the control of conscious thought.

Language: en