Citation

Barron E, Riby LM, Greer J, Smallwood J. Psychol. Sci. 2011; 22(5): 596-601.

Affiliation

Division of Psychology, Northumbria University, Leipzig, Germany.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Association for Psychological Science, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1177/0956797611404083

PMID

21460338

Abstract

This study used event-related potentials to explore whether mind wandering (task-unrelated thought, or TUT) emerges through general problems in distraction, deficits of task-relevant processing (the executive-function view), or a general reduction in attention to external events regardless of their relevance (the decoupling hypothesis). Twenty-five participants performed a visual oddball task, in which they were required to differentiate between a rare target stimulus (to measure task-relevant processes), a rare novel stimulus (to measure distractor processing), and a frequent nontarget stimulus. TUT was measured immediately following task performance using a validated retrospective measure. High levels of TUT were associated with a reduction in cortical processing of task-relevant events and distractor stimuli. These data contradict the suggestion that mind wandering is associated with distraction problems or specific deficits in task-relevant processes. Instead, the data are consistent with the decoupling hypothesis: that TUT dampens the processing of sensory information irrespective of that information's task relevance.


Keywords: Driver distraction;

Language: en