Catching Mind Wandering With Pupillometry: Conceptual and Methodological Challenges.

Mind-wandering (MW) refers to the shift of attention away from an ongoing task and/or external environment towards mental contents (e.g., memories, prospective thoughts) unrelated to the task.

The Subjective Experience of Autobiographical Remembering: Conceptual and Methodological Advances and Challenges.

The investigation of the phenomenology of autobiographical memories (i.e., how a memory is subjectively experienced and its meaning) has provided an important contribution to our understanding of autobiographical remembering.

Involuntary autobiographical memories and déjà vu: When and why attention makes a difference.

The target article claims that involuntary autobiographical memories and déjà vu are based on the same retrieval processes, although they result in different phenomenological states. Here we argue that the differential engagement of attention at various stages of memory may be one of the determinants of when common retrieval processes give rise to such different experiences.

Prominent role of executive functioning on the Phonemic Fluency Test in people with multiple sclerosis.

Objective: Executive functioning (EF) can be one of the earliest, despite under-detected, impaired cognitive domains in patients with multiple sclerosis (pwMS). However, it is still not clear the role of EF on verbal fluency tests given the presence of information processing speed (IPS) deficits in pwMS.

Method: Performance of a group of 43 pwMS without IPS impairment as measured with the Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT) and a group of 32 healthy controls (HC) was compared on the Phonemic and Semantic Fluency Tests.

Semantic Self-Images and Well-Being in Young and Older Adults: Does the Accessibility Matter?

In the present study we investigated whether and how age group, dimensions of well-being and their interactions predicted the phenomenological properties of semantic self-images, taking also into account the different levels of accessibility of self-images (i.e., order of generation).

Web-Based Assessment of the Phenomenology of Autobiographical Memories in Young and Older Adults.

Autobiographical memories (ABMs) produce rich phenomenological experiences. Although few standardized and comprehensive measures of the phenomenology of ABMs have been developed, a web-based assessment of the full range of phenomenological properties is still missing. In the present study, we aimed to fill this gap and tested the psychometric properties of a web-based version of the Assessment of the Phenomenology of Autobiographical Memory (APAM) in a group of young and older adults.

A closer look at the timecourse of mind wandering: Pupillary responses and behaviour.

Mind wandering (MW) refers to the shift of attention away from a primary task and/or external environment towards thoughts unrelated to the task. Recent evidence has shown that pupillometry can be used as an objective marker of the onset and maintenance of externally-driven MW episodes. In the present study we aimed to further investigate pupillary changes associated with the onset and duration of self-reported MW episodes.

Shaping our personal past: Assessing the phenomenology of autobiographical memory and its association with object and spatial imagery.

A new instrument has been developed that allows a comprehensive assessment of the relevant dimensions of the phenomenology of autobiographical memories (Assessment of the Phenomenology of Autobiographical Memory, APAM), and their association with visual object and spatial imagery has been examined. An initial version of APAM consisting of 30 items (the first 28 measured on a seven-point Likert-type scale) was developed and administered to a sample of 138 undergraduates. To test whether each item consistently measured the same dimension across different memories, all questions were rated for 12 cues.

False memories in relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis patients: A preliminary investigation with the DRM paradigm.

Background: Memory impairment is one of the most frequently and early detected impairment in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. Several authors have argued that when a failure occurs in the retrieval of lexical information, this might be due to a reduction of the lexical pool, related to semantic memory. Here we further investigated memory alteration in MS patients, by focusing on memory distortions (i.

Distinguishing spontaneous from deliberate mind wandering in adolescents: The role of attentional control and depressive symptoms.

Research on individual differences in mind wandering (MW) in healthy adults has supported the separation of spontaneous and deliberate MW given their different association with a number of psychological traits. This study aimed to further test this distinction by investigating the associations of the two types of MW with attentional control and depressive symptomatology in adolescents. Data were collected on 439 9-10th graders, who completed measures of spontaneous and deliberate MW, distractibility, difficulty in attentional shifting, and depressive symptomatology.

Visual attentional load affects the frequency of involuntary autobiographical memories and their level of meta-awareness.

Involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) are memories of past events that come to mind without deliberate retrieval attempts. Common in everyday life, IAMs have recently become a topic of experimental investigations with laboratory procedures. In the present study, we build on the recent methodological advancements in the study of IAMs, and we investigate the effects of manipulating the attentional load on the incidence of IAMs, as well as on the level of meta-awareness of these memories.

Space-time interaction: visuo-spatial processing affects the temporal focus of mind wandering.

Our understanding of mind wandering (MW) has dramatically increased over the past decade. Studies have shown that in the vast majority of cases, MW is directed to times other than the present, and a bias toward the future has been reported (prospective bias). The processing of time is not independent of the processing of space: humans represent time along a spatial continuum, on a "mental time line" (MTL).

Tracking the Dynamics of Mind Wandering: Insights from Pupillometry.

Mind wandering (MW) refers to the shift of attention away from a primary task towards thoughts unrelated to the task. Here we show that significant new insight into the dynamics of this process can be gained by using pupillometry. Participants performed a monotonous vigilance task which was intermixed with task-irrelevant verbal cues.

Manipulating cues in mind wandering: Verbal cues affect the frequency and the temporal focus of mind wandering.

Our understanding of mind wandering (MW) has dramatically increased over the past decade. A key challenge still facing research is the identification of the processes and events that directly cause and control its occurrence. In the present study we sought to shed light on this question, by investigating the effects of verbal cues on the frequency and temporal focus of MW.

Visual object imagery and autobiographical memory: Object Imagers are better at remembering their personal past.

In the present study we examined whether higher levels of object imagery, a stable characteristic that reflects the ability and preference in generating pictorial mental images of objects, facilitate involuntary and voluntary retrieval of autobiographical memories (ABMs). Individuals with high (High-OI) and low (Low-OI) levels of object imagery were asked to perform an involuntary and a voluntary ABM task in the laboratory. Results showed that High-OI participants generated more involuntary and voluntary ABMs than Low-OI, with faster retrieval times.

Structural and functional correlates of hypnotic depth and suggestibility.

This study explores whether self-reported depth of hypnosis and hypnotic suggestibility are associated with individual differences in neuroanatomy and/or levels of functional connectivity. Twenty-nine people varying in suggestibility were recruited and underwent structural, and after a hypnotic induction, functional magnetic resonance imaging at rest. We used voxel-based morphometry to assess the correlation of grey matter (GM) and white matter (WM) against the independent variables: depth of hypnosis, level of relaxation and hypnotic suggestibility.

Why are we not flooded by involuntary autobiographical memories? Few cues are more effective than many.

Recent research on involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) has shown that these memories can be elicited and studied in the laboratory under controlled conditions. Employing a modified version of a vigilance task developed by Schlagman and Kvavilashvili (Mem Cogn 36:920-932, 2008) to elicit IAMs, we investigated the effects of varying the frequency of external cues on the number of IAMs reported. During the vigilance task, participants had to detect an occasional target stimulus (vertical lines) in a constant stream of non-target stimuli (horizontal lines).

The spatial frequencies influence the aesthetic judgment of buildings transculturally.

Recent evidence has shown that buildings designed to be high-ranking, according to the Western architectural decorum, have more impact on the minds of their beholders than low-ranking buildings. Here we investigated whether and how the aesthetic judgment for high- and low-ranking buildings was affected by differences in cultural expertise and by power spectrum differences. A group of Italian and Japanese participants performed aesthetic judgment tasks, with line drawings of high- and low-ranking buildings and with their random-phase versions (an image with the exact power spectrum of the original one but non-recognizable anymore).

Brief report: Violent false memories and engagement in aggressive and delinquent behavior: an investigation in adolescents.

The present study investigates the relationship between violent false memories and delinquent and aggressive behavior in a sample of adolescents. Two hundred eleven participants completed measures of aggressive and delinquent behavior and performed a modified version of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm, a false memory task for lists of associated words. Participants were presented with a list of ambiguously violent words and three lists of neutral words.

Manipulating cues in involuntary autobiographical memory: verbal cues are more effective than pictorial cues.

In two experiments, pictorial cues were compared with their verbal labels to assess their effectiveness in eliciting involuntary autobiographical memories. Cues were relatively complex in Experiment 1 (e.g.

Modifying the frequency and characteristics of involuntary autobiographical memories.

Recent studies have shown that involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) can be elicited in the laboratory. Here we assessed whether the specific instructions given to participants can change the nature of the IAMs reported, in terms of both their frequency and their characteristics. People were either made or not made aware that the aim of the study was to examine IAMs.

"It's a hair-dryer…No, it's a drill": misidentification-related false recognitions in younger and older adults.

Memory for visual objects, although typically highly accurate, can be distorted, especially in older adults. Here we asked whether also erroneous identifications of visual objects subsequently corrected and replaced by a correct identification might induce false recognitions, and whether this is more likely to occur in older people. For this aim a new paradigm was developed.

Lack of control enhances accurate and inaccurate identification responses to degraded visual objects.

Recent studies have shown that lack of control induces illusory pattern perception. In this study, we demonstrate that lacking control also affected identification responses to degraded pictures of visual objects. As compared with control participants, participants in whom lack of control was experimentally induced produced identification responses to visual objects at a significantly higher level of degradation of the stimulus.

Hippocampal contributions to the processing of architectural ranking.

Theories of rhetoric and architecture suggest that buildings designed to be high ranking according to the Western architectural decorum have more impact on the minds of their beholders than low-ranking buildings. Here, we used event-related potentials in a visual object categorization task to probe this assumption and to examine whether the hippocampus contributes to the processing of architectural ranking. We found that early negative potentials between 200 and 400 ms differentiated between high- and low-ranking buildings in healthy subjects and patients with temporal lobe epilepsy with and without hippocampal sclerosis.

Suggested visual hallucinations in and out of hypnosis.

We administered suggestions to see a gray-scale pattern as colored and a colored pattern in shades of gray to 30 high suggestible and eight low suggestible students. The suggestions were administered twice, once following the induction of hypnosis and once without an induction. Besides rating the degree of color they saw in the stimuli differently, participants also rated their states of consciousness as normal, relaxed, hypnotized, or deeply hypnotized.