How Consistent Is Mind Wandering across Situations and Tasks? A Latent State-Trait Analysis

Autor/inn/en	Rummel, Jan; Hagemann, Dirk; Steindorf, Lena; Schubert, Anna-Lena
Titel	How Consistent Is Mind Wandering across Situations and Tasks? A Latent State-Trait Analysis
Quelle	In: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 48 (2022) 10, S.1385-1399 (15 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Rummel, Jan) ORCID (Hagemann, Dirk) ORCID (Steindorf, Lena) ORCID (Schubert, Anna-Lena)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0278-7393
DOI	10.1037/xlm0001041
Schlagwörter	Attention; Influences; Activities; Reliability; Attention Control; Cognitive Processes; Evaluation; Measurement; Individual Differences; College Students + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Aufmerksamkeit; Influence; Einfluss; Einflussfaktor; Reliabilität; Aufmerksamkeitstest; Cognitive process; Kognitiver Prozess; Evaluierung; Messverfahren; Individueller Unterschied; Collegestudent
Abstract	Mind wandering is often defined as the phenomenon of one's attention drifting away from the current activity toward inner thoughts and feelings. In the laboratory, mind wandering is most frequently assessed with thought reports that are collected while people perform some ongoing activity. It is not clear, however, inasmuch the resulting mind-wandering reports are reflective of person-consistent mind-wandering tendencies and/or situation-driven fluctuations in mind-wandering behavior. To shed light on this question, we tested how consistent mind-wandering reports are across different measurement occasions and tasks to investigate to which extent they indicate individual differences in mind wandering. Results from a latent state-trait analysis showed that mind-wandering reports are occasion-consistent to some extent and also somewhat task-specific. Theoretical implications of these findings are that mind wandering in the laboratory is less affected by situational factors than often assumed, but that individual differences in mind wandering partly depend on the currently ongoing task. Future research should investigate the origins of task-specificity effects on mind wandering and researchers should further incorporate the idea of task-specificity in future theory building. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01