Does Mind Wandering Reflect Executive Function or Executive Failure? Comment on and

By Jennifer C. McVay, M. Kane. Psychological bulletin, 2010

625 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In this Comment, we contrast different conceptions of mind wandering that were presented in two recent theoretical reviews: Smallwood and Schooler (2006) and Watkins (2008). We also introduce a new perspective on the role of executive control in mind wandering by integrating empirical evidence presented in Smallwood and Schooler (2006) with two theoretical frameworks: Watkins’s (2008) elaborated control theory and Klinger’s (1971; 2009) current concerns theory. In contrast to the Smallwood-Schooler claim that mind-wandering recruits executive resources, we argue that mind wandering represents a failure of executive control and that it is dually determined by the presence of automatically generated thoughts in response to environmental and mental cues and the ability of the executive-control system to deal with this interference. We present empirical support for this view from experimental, neuroimaging, and individual-differences research.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5dc549be01d8cdc2d241e0e3fd609a39d852cb6b

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cognitive Neuroscience

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Citations in the corpus

The Brain’s Default Network and its Adaptive Role in Internal Mentation (2011, background): “Interestingly, participants also activated frontoparietal control regions when experiencing spontaneous thoughts, a finding which is currently a matter of debate (McVay and Kane 2010; Smallwood 2010).”
The costs and benefits of mind-wandering: a review. (2013, background): “For although mind-wandering can and does occur in a damaging fashion for many types of tasks, it also occurs most prevalently during tasks that impose lesser attentional and working memory demands (Teasdale et al., 1993; McVay & Kane, 2010).”
Why the Global Availability of Mind Wandering Necessitates Resource Competition: Reply to McVay and Kane (2010) (2010, methodology): “As noted by McVay and Kane (2010), the conflict hypothesis successfully predicts the link between mind wandering and performance, the association to states such as fatigue and inebriation, and the linkage between attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder or depression and mind-wandering frequency.”
Everyday Attention: Variation in Mind Wandering and Memory in a Lecture (2012, background): “According to McVay and Kane (2010), mind wandering results from a failure to maintain attention on the primary task.”
The science of mind wandering: empirically navigating the stream of consciousness. (2015, background): “At present there is no consensus on the precise relationship between mind wandering and executive control, despite the identification of a clear link between them (McVay & Kane 2010, Smallwood 2010).”