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A wandering mind does not stray far from home: the value of metacognition in distant search.

ABSTRACT: When faced with a problem, how do individuals search for potential solutions? In this article, we explore the cognitive processes that lead to local search (i.e., identifying options closest to existing solutions) and distant search (i.e., identifying options of a qualitatively different nature than existing solutions). We suggest that mind wandering is likely to lead to local search because it operates by spreading activation from initial ideas to closely associated ideas. This reduces the likelihood of accessing a qualitatively different solution. However, instead of getting lost in thought, individuals can also step back and monitor their thoughts from a detached perspective. Such mindful metacognition, we suggest, is likely to lead to distant search because it redistributes activation away from initial ideas to other, less strongly associated, ideas. This hypothesis was confirmed across two studies. Thus, getting lost in thoughts is helpful when one is on the right track and needs only a local search whereas stepping back from thoughts is helpful when one needs distant search to produce a change in perspective.

SUBMITTER: Kudesia RS

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4431673 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A wandering mind does not stray far from home: the value of metacognition in distant search.

Kudesia Ravi S RS Baer Markus M Elfenbein Hillary Anger HA

PloS one 20150514 5

When faced with a problem, how do individuals search for potential solutions? In this article, we explore the cognitive processes that lead to local search (i.e., identifying options closest to existing solutions) and distant search (i.e., identifying options of a qualitatively different nature than existing solutions). We suggest that mind wandering is likely to lead to local search because it operates by spreading activation from initial ideas to closely associated ideas. This reduces the like ...[more]

PMID: 25974164

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Project description:A significant body of literature supports the contention that pupil size varies depending on cognitive load, affective state, and level of drowsiness. Here we assessed whether oculometric measures such as gaze position, blink frequency and pupil size were correlated with the occurrence and time course of self-reported mind-wandering episodes. We recorded the pupil size of two subjects engaged in a monotonous breath counting task while keeping their eyes on a fixation cross. This task is conducive to producing mind-wandering episodes. Each subject performed ten 20-min sessions, for total duration of about 4 h. Subjects were instructed to report spontaneous mind-wandering episodes by pressing a button when they lost count of their breath. After each button press, subjects filled in a short questionnaire describing the characteristics of their mind-wandering episode. We observed larger pupil size during the breath-focusing period compared to the mind-wandering period (p < 0.01 for both subjects). Our findings contradict previous research showing a higher baseline pupil size during mind wandering episodes in visual tasks. We discuss possible explanations for this discrepancy. We also analyzed nine other oculometric measures including blink rate, blink duration and gaze position. We built a support vector machine (SVM) classifier and showed that mean pupil size was the most reliable predictor of mind wandering in both subjects. The classification accuracy of mind wandering data segments vs. breath-focusing data segments was 81% for the first subject and 77% for the second subject. Additionally, we analyzed oculometric measures in light of the phenomenological data collected in the questionnaires. We showed that how well subjects remembered their thoughts while mind wandering was positively correlated with pupil size (subject 1, p < 0.001; subject 2, p < 0.05). Feelings of well being were also positively correlated with pupil size (subject 1, p < 0.001; subject 2, p < 0.001). Our results suggest that oculometric data could be used as a neurocognitive marker of mind-wandering episodes.

Dataset Information

A wandering mind does not stray far from home: the value of metacognition in distant search.

Publications

A wandering mind does not stray far from home: the value of metacognition in distant search.

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