Attention control: the role of memory maintenance and intelligent disengagement on the wandering mind

Abstract

Mind-wandering is a common part of everyday experience, but not all mind-wandering may reflect the same underlying processes. In particular, moments of off task thought that are reported in response to an external probe may differ from moments that people notice and report on their own. The present study examined whether these two forms of mind-wandering are differentially related to attention control, working memory capacity, and fluid intelligence. Participants completed a battery of cognitive tasks designed to assess these broader abilities, along with sustained attention tasks that measured both externally probed and self-detected mind-wandering. Composite measures of attention control, working memory capacity, and fluid intelligence were used to predict each type of mind-wandering, and additional analyses examined how each type related to objective markers of sustained attention performance. The results showed that probe-caught mind-wandering was reliably associated with lower attention control and lower working memory capacity which is consistent with the view that it reflects failures to maintain task goals over time. By contrast, self-caught mind-wandering showed a more complex pattern. Although observed relations were directionally consistent with the prediction that working memory capacity would be negatively related and fluid intelligence would relate positively to self-caught mind-wandering, these effects were small and did not reach statistical significance. At the behavioral level, probe-caught and self-caught mind-wandering showed different patterns of association with sustained attention performance. Taken together, these findings suggest that probe-caught and self-caught mind-wandering should not be treated as interchangeable measures. Probe-caught reports appear to provide a clearer index of lapses in sustained attention, whereas self-detected reports may reflect a more complex combination of attentional failure and the ability to notice that one's mind has drifted. These results highlight the importance of distinguishing between different forms of mind-wandering when studying individual differences in cognitive control.