Mind wandering on command.

Three experiments ( = 336) examined whether participants can systematically adjust levels of mind wandering on command. Participants performed four blocks of the metronome response task (MRT) in which they pressed a spacebar in sync with a steady audio tone. Levels of spontaneous and deliberate mind wandering were measured using intermittent thought probes.

Examining the effects of caffeine during an auditory attention task.

Participants completed two sessions of an auditory attention task and intermittently responded to thought probes asking about their level of mind-wandering. After the first session one group received 200 mg of caffeinated chewing gum (n = 61) and another group received regular (placebo) chewing gum (n = 66). The gum was chewed for 20-minutes and then disposed of before beginning the second session.

Active vs passive media multitasking and memory for lecture materials.

Access to digital technology in the 21st century has led to the emergence of media multitasking (MMT), which involves attempting to engage with multiple streams of media at the same time. This behaviour, which is frequently considered to be a form of inattention, has become increasingly prevalent in educational settings, such as undergraduate lectures. The aim of the present study was to examine media-multitasking (MMT) during an asynchronous online lecture by giving participants the opportunity to engage with a secondary, non-required media stream (i.

On the relation between oral contraceptive use and self-control.

In two studies we examined the relation between oral contraceptive (OC) use and self-reported levels of self-control in undergraduate women using OCs (Study 1: OC group N = 399, Study 2: OC group N = 288) and naturally cycling women not using any form of hormonal contraceptives (Study 1: Non-OC group N = 964, Study 2: Non-OC group N = 997). We assessed the self-overriding aspect of self-control using the Brief Self-Control Scale (BSCS) and strategies for self-regulation using the Regulatory Mode Scale (RMS), which separately measures the tendency to assess one's progress towards a goal (assessment), and the tendency to engage in activities that move one towards an end goal (locomotion). In Study 1, we found no significant differences between OC and non-OC groups in their levels of self-overriding or self-regulatory assessment.

Attention in hindsight: Using stimulated recall to capture dynamic fluctuations in attentional engagement.

Attentional engagement is known to vary on a moment-to-moment basis. However, few self-report methods can effectively capture dynamic fluctuations in attentional engagement over time. In the current paper, we evaluated the utility of stimulated recall, a method wherein individuals are asked to remember their subjective states while using a mnemonic cue, for the measurement of temporal changes in attentional engagement.

Comparing attentional disengagement between Prolific and MTurk samples.

Attention often disengages from primary tasks in favor of secondary tasks (i.e., multitasking) and task-unrelated thoughts (i.

Examining the relation between oral contraceptive use and attentional engagement in everyday life.

Oral contraceptives (OCs) used by women worldwide include artificial estradiol and progesterone, which can attach to receptors in the brain and potentially influence cognition. In the present studies, we examined the relation between OC use and self-reported everyday attention. We collected trait-level measures of mind wandering, attention-related errors, and attention lapses in undergraduate women using OCs (Study 1: OC group = 471, Study 2: OC group = 246) and naturally cycling women not using any form of hormonal contraceptives (Study 1: Non-OC group = 1,330, Study 2: Non-OC group = 929).

The effects of self-selected background music and task difficulty on task engagement and performance in a visual vigilance task.

Listening to self-selected background music has been shown to be associated with increased task focus and decreased mind wandering during a sustained attention task (Kiss and Linnell, Psychological Research Psychologische Forschung 85:2313-2325, 2021). It is unclear, however, how this relation may depend on the potentially critical factor of task difficulty. To address this knowledge gap, we explored how listening to self-selected music, compared to silence, affects subjectively experienced task engagement (i.

The relation between trait flow and engagement, understanding, and grades in undergraduate lectures.

Background: Much work has focused on inattention in the classroom, examining how episodes of task-unrelated thought (i.e., mind wandering) and engagement with various forms of media (e.

The Influence of Posture on Attention.

Smith et al. (2019) found standing resulted in better performance than sitting in three different cognitive control paradigms: a Stroop task, a task-switching, and a visual search paradigm. Here, we conducted close replications of the authors' three experiments using larger sample sizes than the original work.

A desire for distraction: uncovering the rates of media multitasking during online research studies.

Interpretations of task performance in many cognitive studies rest on the assumption that participants are fully attentive to the tasks they agree to complete. However, with research studies being increasingly conducted online where monitoring participant engagement is difficult, this assumption may be inaccurate. If participants were found to be engaging in off-task behaviours while participating in these studies, the interpretation of study results might be called into question.

The uncertain advisor: trust, accuracy, and self-correction in an automated decision support system.

The increasing use of automated systems to support human decision-making is a development that has practical implications across multiple domains, and the dynamics of trust formation in an autonomous system is a critical element in the success of the human-automation team. Here, we employ existing models of human-automation trust to narrow our scope to address, specifically, the concept of dynamically learned trust. In the present experiments we explored how trust in an autonomous system is influenced by variations in system speed, system accuracy, and a novel operationalization of system uncertainty, in which the automated system corrects itself mid-response.

Avoidance of mild threat observed in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) using eye tracking.

Attentional biases towards threat are assumed to be a causal factor in the development of anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). However, findings have been inconsistent, and studies often examine single time-point bias during threat exposure, instead of across time. Attention to threat may shift throughout exposure (e.

Boredom and Media Multitasking.

Media multitasking entails simultaneously engaging in multiple tasks when at least one of the tasks involves media (e.g., online activities and streaming videos).

Does framing an assignment as involving one or multiple components influence subjective experiences of attentional engagement?

Across two studies, we explored whether framing an assignment as involving either multitasking or single-tasking (Srna et al. Psychol Sci 29(12):1942-1955, 2018) leads to differences in both subjective ratings of attentional engagement (i.e.

Contrasting Mind-Wandering, (Dark) Flow, and Affect During Multiline and Single-Line Slot Machine Play.

Slot machines are a very popular form of gambling in which a small proportion of gamblers experience gambling-related problems. These players refer to a trance-like state that researchers have labelled 'dark flow'-a pleasurable, but maladaptive state where players become completely occupied by the game. We assessed 110 gamblers for mindfulness (using the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale), gambling problems (using the Problem Gambling Severity Index), depressive symptoms (using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale), and boredom proneness (using the Boredom Proneness Scale).

Attention spreads between students in a learning environment.

We propose a novel phenomenon, defined as the spread of attentive (or inattentive) states among members of a group. We examined attention contagion in a learning environment in which pairs of undergraduate students watched a lecture video. Each pair consisted of a participant and a confederate trained to exhibit attentive behaviors (e.

Re-examining the effect of motivation on intentional and unintentional task-unrelated thought: accounting for thought constraint produces novel results.

It has been proposed that motivating participants to perform well on a cognitive task ought to lead to decreases in rates of intentional, but not unintentional, task-unrelated thought (TUT; a commonly studied variety of mind wandering). However, at odds with this prediction, research has found that increasing motivation results in decreases in both intentional and unintentional TUTs. One possible explanation for this surprising finding is that standard assessments of TUT may inadvertently conflate TUTs with another variety of mind wandering: unconstrained thought.

Sustained attention and the experience of flow.

The state of flow-often referred to as being "in the zone"-is characterized by the experience of deep, effortless concentration on the activity one is engaged in. While much of the flow literature seems to imply a tight link between flow and attention processes, relatively little work has assessed this question empirically. In the present study, we explored how the experience of flow relates to behavioural performance on the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART).

Does Posture Influence the Stroop Effect?

Rosenbaum, Mama, and Algom (2017) reported that participants who completed the Stroop task (i.e., name the hue of a color word when the hue and word meaning are congruent or incongruent) showed a smaller Stroop effect (i.

Using deliberate mind-wandering to escape negative mood states: Implications for gambling to escape.

Background And Aims: Slot machines are a pervasive form of gambling in North America. Some gamblers describe entering "the slot machine zone"-a complete immersion into slots play to the exclusion of all else.

Methods: We assessed 111 gamblers for mindfulness (using the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS)), gambling problems (using the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI)), depressive symptoms (using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale), and boredom proneness (using the Boredom Proneness Scale).

Dissociating the freely-moving thought dimension of mind-wandering from the intentionality and task-unrelated thought dimensions.

The recently forwarded family-resemblances framework of mind-wandering argues that mind-wandering is a multidimensional construct consisting of a variety of exemplars. On this view, membership in the mind-wandering family is graded along various dimensions that define more or less prototypical instances of mind-wandering. In recent work, three dimensions that have played a prominent role in defining prototypicality within the mind-wandering family include: (a) task-relatedness (i.

Mind-Wandering Across the Age Gap: Age-Related Differences in Mind-Wandering Are Partially Attributable to Age-Related Differences in Motivation.

Objectives: A common finding in the mind-wandering literature is that older adults (OAs) tend to mind-wander less frequently than young adults (YAs). Here, we sought to determine whether this age-related difference in mind-wandering is attributable to age-related differences in motivation.

Method: YAs and OAs completed an attention task during which they responded to thought probes that assessed rates of mind-wandering, and they provided self-reports of task-based motivation before and after completion of the attention task.