title: Absorbed in thought: the effect of mind wandering on the processing of relevant and irrelevant events.
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.
authors: Division of Psychology, Northumbria University, Leipzig, Germany.
authors: Evelyn
authors: E
authors: Barron
authors: Leigh M
authors: LM
authors: Riby
authors: Joanna
authors: J
authors: Greer
authors: Jonathan
authors: J
authors: Smallwood
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008606:Mental Processes; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013850:Thinking