title: Intentionality and meta-awareness of mind wandering: Are they one and the same, or distinct dimensions?
abstract: Researchers have recently demonstrated that mind-wandering episodes can vary on numerous dimensions, and it has been suggested that assessing these dimensions will play an important role in our understanding of mind wandering. One dimension that has received considerable attention in recent work is the intentionality of mind wandering. Although it has been claimed that indexing the intentionality of mind wandering will be necessary if researchers are to obtain a coherent understanding of the wandering mind, one concern is that this dimension might be redundant with another, longstanding, dimension: namely, meta-awareness. Thus, the utility of the argument for assessing intentionality rests upon a demonstration that this dimension is distinct from the meta-awareness dimension. To shed light on this issue, across two studies we compared and contrasted these dimensions to determine whether they are redundant or distinct. In both studies, we found support for the view that these dimensions are distinct.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Harvard University, William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA. paulseli@fas.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Seli
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Brandon C W
authors.initials: BCW
authors.lastname: Ralph
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Evan F
authors.initials: EF
authors.lastname: Risko
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: W Schooler
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Harvard University, William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Schacter
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Smilek
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D000067489:Metacognition / Q000502:physiology*; D013850:Thinking / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Intentional; Intentionality; Meta-awareness; Mind wandering; Tune-outs; Unintentional; Zone-outs