Journal
CONSCIOUSNESS AND COGNITION
Volume 20, Issue 4, Pages 1604-1611Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2011.08.007
Keywords
Mind-wandering; Task unrelated thought; Prospection; Future; Self-reference; Working memory capacity; Experience sampling; Autobiographical planning
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Given that as much as half of human thought arises in a stimulus independent fashion, it would seem unlikely that such thoughts would play no functional role in our lives. However, evidence linking the mind-wandering state to performance decrement has led to the notion that mind-wandering primarily represents a form of cognitive failure. Based on previous work showing a prospective bias to mind-wandering, the current study explores the hypothesis that one potential function of spontaneous thought is to plan and anticipate personally relevant future goals, a process referred to as autobiographical planning. The results confirm that the content of mind-wandering is predominantly future-focused, demonstrate that individuals with high working memory capacity are more likely to engage in prospective mind-wandering, and show that prospective mind-wandering frequently involves autobiographical planning. Together this evidence suggests that mind-wandering can enable prospective cognitive operations that are likely to be useful to the individual as they navigate through their daily lives. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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