Mind wandering, meaning, and action

走神、意义和行动

• 批准号: RGPIN-2014-04981
• 负责人: Dixon, Peter
• 金额: $ 1.89万
• 依托单位: University of Alberta
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=631193
• 关键词: Mind; wandering; meaning; action

Mind wandering is a ubiquitous cognitive phenomena, common in education and work environments and other day-to-day activities. A central question is how one should view this prevalence. On the one hand, mind wandering can be characterized as an undesirable failure of executive control. If this is a reasonable perspective, we should seek ways to minimize mind wandering. On the other hand, mind wandering might be interpreted as a product of the normal and appropriate variations in the levels of priority of ones mental goals. For example, the goal of performing the current target task may become temporarily less important than the goal of thinking about other things. As such, mind wandering might foster suitable or even needful processes such as planning, creativity, and mental and physical homeostasis. If this latter perspective is correct, we should attempt to delineate under what circumstances and to what degree mind wandering is beneficial. In order to disentangle these possibilities, we need to understand the nature of mind wandering and how it is related to ongoing cognitive activities. The proposed research is intended to develop such an understanding through a unified theoretical analysis of mind wandering: In particular, I argue that mind wandering diverts resources from the interpretation and assignment of meaning to the current context. As a shorthand, I refer to this as “meaningful processing” of the task at hand. In turn, meaningful processing involves relating the current situation to one’s semantic knowledge and prior experience stored in memory. Thus, deficits in mind wandering may occur because one’s ability to carry out this required memory retrieval is limited. In the proposed research, this overarching thesis is applied to phenomena in the control of action, cognitive control, and text comprehension. In the control of action, mind wandering is predicted to interfere with the ability to tune actions on the basis of recent experience; in the domain of cognitive control, mind wandering is predicted to interfere with the ability to modulate task performance based on instructions or set; and in text comprehension, mind wandering is predicted to interfere with the use of knowledge and experience in the construction of text memory representations. Experiments are described to test and extend these predictions in each of these domains. The proposed research thus provides a broad-based program investigating the nature of mind-wandering deficits. The long-term objective is to gain an understanding of the phenomenon of mind wandering and how it affects cognitive performance. In particular, the proposed theoretical analysis in terms of memory retrieval provides important clues as to when mind wandering will interfere with ongoing productive activity and when it will not.

思维徘徊是一种普遍存在的认知现象，在教育和工作环境以及其他日常活动中很常见。一个核心问题是人们应该如何看待这种流行率。一方面，思维徘徊可以被描述为执行控制的不良失败。如果这是一个合理的观点，我们应该寻求方法来最大程度地减少思维徘徊。另一方面，思维流浪可能被解释为在心理目标优先级水平上正常和适当的变化的产物。例如，执行当前目标任务的目标可能比思考其他事物的目标暂时重要。因此，思维徘徊可能会促进合适的甚至有必要的过程，例如计划，创造力以及身心稳态。如果以后的观点是正确的，我们应该尝试在什么情况下描绘出来，以及在哪种程度上流浪是有益的。为了消除这些可能性，我们需要了解思想流浪的本质以及它与持续的认知活动的关系。拟议的研究旨在通过统一的思维流浪理论分析来发展这种理解：尤其是，我认为思维徘徊将资源从对当前环境的解释和分配中的解释和分配转移。作为速记，我将其称为手头任务的“有意义的处理”。反过来，有意义的处理涉及将当前情况与一个人的语义知识和存储在记忆中的先前经验相关联。这可能会牢记在内，可能会发生徘徊，因为一个人执行此必需的内存检索的能力是有限的。在拟议的研究中，这一首要论文应用于控制，认知控制和文本理解的现象。在控制行动中，预计思维徘徊会干扰根据最近的经验调节行动的能力。在认知控制的领域中，预计思维徘徊将干扰基于指令或设置调节任务绩效的能力；在文本理解中，预计思维徘徊会干扰在文本内存表示的构建中使用知识和经验。描述了在每个域中测试和扩展这些预测的实验。因此，拟议的研究提供了一个基于广泛的计划，调查了不足的不足的性质。长期目标是了解思维徘徊现象及其如何影响认知表现。特别是，提出的理论分析在记忆检索方面提供了重要的线索，即何时徘徊会干扰持续的生产活动以及何时不会。