title: The troubling science of neurophenomenology.
abstract: Researchers suggest links between mind-wandering and impaired processing of external task stimuli: mind-wandering results in perceptual decoupling. The primary methodology employed to investigate the effects of mind-wandering requires people to report their conscious state and then predicts prior behavior or neurophysiological responses using the person's self-report. Unfortunately, this method employs reports that occur after the behavior occurs. An alternative methodology employs a word displayed prior to a performance check or catch trial. After the catch trial, participants then report their awareness of the word occurring, attempt to recognize the word, and also report whether they were on- or off-task. We show that participants' explicit and implicit awareness of the pre-catch trial word is independent of self-reports of conscious state. This finding conflicts with the perspective that mind-wandering reports indicate perceptual decoupling. Reports of mind-wandering may alternatively be how people explain behavioral outcomes.
authors.affiliation: U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Human Research and Engineering Directorate, RDRL-HRS-E, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, 21005, USA. james.head@gmail.com.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Head
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, 8040, New Zealand.
authors.forename: William S
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Helton
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology*; D000066494:Cognitive Neuroscience / Q000379:methods*; D003243:Consciousness / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology*; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Cognitive effort; Mindlessness; Perceptual decoupling; Sustained attention; Vigilance