Citation

McVay JC, Kane MJ. Psychol. Bull. 2010; 136(2): 188-97; discussion 198-207.

Affiliation

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

Comment On:

Psychol Bull 2006;132(6):946-58.

Comment In:

Psychol Bull 2010;136(2):198-201.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, American Psychological Association)

DOI

10.1037/a0018298

PMID

20192557

PMCID

PMC2850105

Abstract

In this comment, we contrast different conceptions of mind wandering that were presented in 2 recent theoretical reviews: Smallwood and Schooler (2006) and Watkins (2008). We also introduce a new perspective on the role of executive control in mind wandering by integrating empirical evidence presented in Smallwood and Schooler with 2 theoretical frameworks: Watkins's elaborated control theory and Klinger's (1971, 2009) current concerns theory. In contrast to the Smallwood-Schooler claim that mind wandering recruits executive resources, we argue that mind wandering represents a failure of executive control and that it is dually determined by the presence of automatically generated thoughts in response to environmental and mental cues and the ability of the executive-control system to deal with this interference. We present empirical support for this view from experimental, neuroimaging, and individual-differences research.

Language: en